Warrington Colescott
Warrington Colescott | |
---|---|
Born | Warrington Wickham Colescott Jr. March 7, 1921 Oakland, California, U.S. |
Died | September 10, 2018 Hollandale, Wisconsin, U.S. | (aged 97)
Education | University of California, Berkeley |
Occupation | Artist |
Spouses | Vera Sedloff (divorced)Ellen Moore Moore (divorced)
|
Children | 3 |
Warrington Wickham Colescott Jr. (March 7, 1921 – September 10, 2018) was an American artist, he is best known for his satirical etchings. He was a master printmaker and operated Mantegna Press in Hollandale, Wisconsin, with his wife and fellow artist Frances Myers.[1] Colescott died on 10 September 2018, at the age of 97.[2]
Early life and influences
Colescott was born in
Education
Colescott earned his undergraduate degree at the
Mature work
Colescott had studied painting at the University of California, Berkeley, and only began to make
By the early 1960s, Colescott had all but abandoned screenprinting, devoting his time, rather, to complex etchings in color. He achieved a major breakthrough in his work when he began to cut and shape the copper etching plates with mechanics' shears.[8] In addition, he started incorporating bits of letterpress (typically zinc letterpress used for newspaper printing) and recycled etching plates into his compositions.[9] At the same time, his work became less abstract and more narrative in nature, which allowed him to unleash his satirical talents in work such as In Birmingham Jail (1963), which is based on the civil rights struggles in the South, and lambastes the racism and violence of a corrupt system;[10] or Christmas with Ziggy (1964), a social satire of businessmen entertaining their mistresses at a posh London restaurant.[11] That same year, Colescott began an etching about the Depression-era gangster, John Dillinger, which grew into a suite of images mixing fact and fiction about the farm boy-turned-outlaw who mesmerized the public in the 1930s. "A storyteller who skips all the dull parts," as author and curator Gene Baro has called him, Colescott had no compunction about enhancing the narratives with imagined details and anachronistic additions.[12]
Colescott's mature style found fruition in his series Prime-Time Histories: Colescott's USA (1972–73) followed by The History of Printmaking (1975–78), perhaps Colescott's best-known work. In this suite of images, which includes twenty-one intaglio prints, two lithographs, and a handful of watercolors and drawings, Colescott imagines critical moments in the history of printmaking. In each print, Colescott starts with historical fact, and then adds his own interpretation, often borrowing from the featured artist's own style or themes.[13] For instance, in one scene we witness Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, receiving the secrets of this medium from devilish creatures in the Black Forest; in another plate, Colescott imagines Pablo Picasso at the zoo, admiring animals such as the minotaur that recurs in his work. For his riff on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Colescott imagines the fin-de-siècle artist (and enthusiastic chef) in his kitchen, whipping up a lunch for his friends, characters from Lautrec's oeuvre. In 1992, he returned again to an art-historical theme in My German Trip, in which Colescott imagines encounters with the great German printmakers Albrecht Dürer, Käthe Kollwitz, Otto Dix, George Grosz, and members of the German Expressionists, with highly comic results.[14]
More satires and fictional histories have followed. Since the 1970s, Colescott has continued to pursue social satire in his work. As art historian Richard Cox has written, Colescott casts his net wide: "Greed vanity, pride, lust, social ambition, silly fads, and fashions—[Colescott] adapted the traditional targets of artists and writers as his own. With wit and disarming humor he has drawn many entertaining and zany prints, everything from good-natured spoofs to harsh, stinging parodies. Greek gods, American presidents, newspaper tycoons, academics, gangsters, cops, cowboys and Indians, Pilgrims, accountants, scientists, generals, joggers, hunters, show girls, movie stars, the artist himself—you name it, all have been skewered by Colescott's needle."[15]
Recurrent themes since the late 1980s show a different focus. These include burlesque, popular culture, and the afterlife (see The Last Judgement triptych, 1987–88). The artist also focuses on some of his favorite locales, such as California (his birthplace), Wisconsin (where he resides), and New Orleans, the home of his Creole ancestors, as seen in his recent series, Suite Louisiana. Colescott has turned his attention to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan in prints including Imperium: Royal Lancers Attack Wog Armor—Heartland Saved (2005) and Imperium: Down in the Green Zone (2006).
Collections
Colescott's work is in museum collections across the United States and Europe, including the
Exhibitions and publications
Colescott has exhibited in numerous group exhibitions and one-man shows. Among the most important are the exhibition A History of Printmaking originated by the
Critical reception
Colescott first gained critical notice in the 1950s, when he was included in the Young American Printmakers exhibition at the
Honors
Colescott has been recognized by several major honors and fellowships. These include a Fulbright Fellowship to England in 1957, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1965, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1979 and 1983. He is a Fellow of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, and was named an Academician of the National Academy of Design in 1992.
Notes
- ^ "Mantegna Press". The National Gallery of Art. Retrieved July 31, 2021.
- ^ Warrington Colescott obituary
- ^ Mary Weaver Chapin, The Prints of Warrington Colescott: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1948–2008. University of Wisconsin Press and the Milwaukee Art Museum, 2010, p. 2.
- ^ Chapin, p. 3
- ^ Chapin, p. 4. See also Richard Cox, "Forty Years of Printmaking," in Warrington Colescott: Forty Years of Printmaking: A Retrospective, 1948–1988. Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1989, p. 4.
- ^ "Warrington Colescott". Retrieved December 19, 2017.
- ^ See Chapin, p. 9.
- ^ See Chapin, p. 28
- ^ Chapin, p. 29. On Colescott's technique in general, see Carlton Overland, "A Printmaker's Progress," in Warrington Colescott: Forty Years of Printmaking: A Retrospective, 1948–1988. Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1989, pp. 21–24.
- ^ Chapin, p. 29
- ^ Chapin, p. 118
- ^ Gene Baro, "From a Conversation: Warrington Colescott and Gene Baro" in A History of Printmaking: A Traveling Exhibition of the Madison Art Center, June 15 – July 29, 1979 (Madison, Wis.: Madison Art Center, 1979), n.p.
- ^ Cox, pp. 15–16
- ^ See Colescott's article about the genesis of this series, "Galleria: My German Trip." Wisconsin Academy Review 39, no. 2 (1993): 10–13. [1]
- ^ Richard Cox, "Warrington Colescott" in Warrington Colescott: Forty Years of Printmaking: A Retrospective, 1948–1988. Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1989, p. 3.
- ^ worldcat record #19887307
- ^ worldcat record #35671261
- ^ Chapin, p. 11
- ^ Mario Naves, "Surely He Jests," The New York Observer, March 26, 2006
- ^ Cox, p. 3
- ^ Mario Naves, The New York Observer, September 12, 2004.
Further reading
- Colescott, Warrington (1988); Warrington Colescott: Forty Years of Printmaking: A Retrospective, 1948–1988. Madison: Elvehjem Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1989. ISBN 0932900194
- Antreasian, Garo. "Warrington Colescott, Forty Years of Printmaking: A Retrospective, 1948–1988." The Tamarind Papers 12 (1989): 78–79.
- Cox, Richard. "Warrington Colescott: The London Years, 1956–1966." The Tamarind Papers 14 (1991–92): 70–74.
- Colescott, Warrington; "Galleria: My German Trip." Wisconsin Academy Review 39, no. 2 (1993): 10–13. [4]
- ———."Warrington Colescott actualise 'Une Histoire de la Gravure.'" Nouvelles de l'estampe (October 1994): 53–56.
- Gilmour, Pat. "The Discriminating Exaggeration of the True." In Warrington Colescott, 6–15. Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1996.
- Warrington Colescott. Milwaukee: Milwaukee Art Museum, 1996.
- Colescott, Warrington; Werner, Bill; Auer, James (1998); Etched in Acid Warrington Colescott. [Milwaukee, Wis.]: Milwaukee Public Television
- Colescot, Warrington; Hove, Arthur (1999); Progressive Printmakers: Wisconsin Artists and the Print Renaissance, University of Wisconsin Press; illustrated edition. ISBN 0299161102 [5]
- Cartlidge, David R; Elliot, J Keith (2001); Art and the Christian Apocrypha, Routledge 1st edition; Warrington Colescott pp. 160–162. ISBN 0415233925
- Edson, Garry; Howe, A Isabelle (2003); Lynwood Kreneck, Printmaker, Texas Tech Press, U.S.; 1st edition; Warrington Colescott pp. 69, 71, 72, 76. ISBN 0896725057
- Chapin, Mary Weaver (2010); The Prints of Warrington Colescott: A Catalogue Raisonné, 1948–2008. University of Wisconsin Press and the Milwaukee Art Museum. ISBN 0299233006 [6]