Colescott exhibition traces illustrious printmaking career

Artist Warrington Colescott isn't a Wisconsin native, but he's been here since 1949 -- where he taught at UW Madison for 37 years -- and we're eager to claim this uniquely talented printmaker as our own. And curator Mary Weaver Chapin helps solidfy our position with a major Colescott exhibition currently on view at Milwaukee Art Museum.

"Warrington Colescott: Cabaret, Comedy and Satire," which runs through Sept. 26, is a sprawling exhibition that fills the museum's contemporary galleries. The dozens of works are drawn from the collections of the museum and the artist -- along with a few pieces on loan -- and they offer a career-spanning retrospective of Colescott's prints from his very first in 1948 to his most recent work. MAM owns the largest collection of works by the 89-year-old Colescott.

We recently got a tour of the exhibition with Chapin, who assembled the show and its accompanying catalog, which is a catalogue raisonne of Colescott's prints from 1948 to 2008.

"The first gallery is Warrington's early work," Chapin explains as we enter the exhibition, which at the time was still being readied for its opening a couple days later.

"He started and was trained as a painter and started print-making later in his career -- in the late '40s. This gallery has screen prints; some of his very first works including his first print and we're thrilled to have it. It's a portrait of his first wife. He began working in etching after moving to Wisconsin to teach at the University of Wisconsin Madison in 1949.

"He traveled to London and studied etching there. That was when he did his first color etchings, which you'll see in the rest of the show. He goes from screen printing to etching and from abstract to more figurative and really very narrative.

"The exhibition is loosely grouped into eight different sections and they're roughly chronological. Once he hits a certain mature style in the ‘60s, his style is remarkably consistent."

Colescott started out as a painter and brought those skills to his new medium. The result is that within a few years he had already become quite an accomplished and mature print maker.
"He had an undergraduate degree in painting and then a masters, as well," says Chapin.

"His impetus for beginning print-making was that he wanted to make a Christmas card (in 1948). Another art professor at Long Beach City College, where he was working, taught him how to silk screen, and that's how he tip-toed into it. He was hired to teach at Madison and taught drawing and design. He did not start teaching print-making at Madison until the 1960s."

During those early years, Colescott was woodshedding, learning as much as he could and experimenting with print making. But, says, Chapin, even during that period, he was never shy about showing his work.

"Interestingly, he had always been very ambitious about exhibiting. He wanted his work to be seen and was exhibiting right from the start, and because prints are multiples he could send things off. He said it was an era where people could just roll them up in a tube and send them off, so he would have multiple shows going on at one time.

"Some of them are in very small editions, but he did want is work to be seen. He's the same way now. I tease him because when I was putting the book together and looking at his exhibition chronology, I said, 'Warrington, look at this. In the same year, you were showing work at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Wisconsin State Fair.' You know, I was trying to rib him ... and you know what? He stood up and defended the Wisconsin State Fair. He said, 'Well, a lot of people go there, and it's a juried show and I want my work to be seen. He's not an elitist. There's one reason that he's been widely collected. He wants his work out there; he keeps his prices low and wants people to enjoy them."

Colescott's works are explosions of color and images, many packed full of imagery and little vignettes. They start off more abstract and grow more figurative with time. Some draw on collage, others exist in monochromatic and color states. There are some straightforward works, like an image of Notre Dame in Paris, but many of his works are laced with political and social commentary and satire.

Chapin looks especially excited as she points out some of these works.

"This wall is dedicated to his fascination with John Dillinger and gangsters of the Midwest, and then we move into a section on politics which ranges from really biting satire and commentary to some very light-hearted work, so he kind of balances it out. The satire is bound to offend someone," she says. "We go from the inner core which is about the race riots in Milwaukee in '67 to some wonderfully frivolous works called the 'Hollandale Tapes.'

"Warrington lives in tiny Hollandale, Wisconsin. He playfully asserts that he hooked up video cameras from Hollandale to all of these sorts of inner sanctums in Washington to capture footage of what really goes on in the government; and who's to say he's wrong?," says Chapin.

We have these politicians over here in literally their think tank, and ... there's this commentary of a soldier writing home and he says, 'Dear mom, It is nice here. We go to class. Sing while we march. We have short arm inspection on Mondays. Today, I made a boo-boo.' As he's launching the missile. And this section goes all the way up to the contemporary with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is a bit out of chronology here, as this political sweep goes from the ‘60s all the way up to the present."

Colescott also riffs on the history of printmaking in a suite of 12 prints and in another series he integrates images from other works, including Picasso's Dora Maar and scenes from "Guernica."

Young people might call Colescott's interpolations and references visual art sampling.

"That's really a great way of thinking about it; the sampling idea," says Chapin.

Chapin, MAM's curator of prints and drawings, says that this exhibition has afforded her a unique opportunity to put together a show in collaboration with a living artist.

"I was actually very concerned about it because every curator has horror stories about conflicts working with a living artist, but we started so long ago -- about 3-4 years ago -- working on the book together," recalls Chapin.

"We established a really good rapport. There were times we disagreed, but could step back and say, here's the artist's point of view, here's the curator's or the historian's point of view, and he's been a dream to work with, so respectful of what I need to do, and he's been so gracious. It's been a great relationship and I think it's almost an anomaly to have it go that well.

"He really gave us a good deal of freedom and was very respectful of the other folks here at the museum: the framers, the designer, and the graphics folks. He gave them the raw material and then said, 'The Milwaukee staff is really great so I know it will be beautiful.'

"He's a fascinating storyteller. All you need is one question and then stop talking and he'll go. It's been lots of fun."

The show's most recent work is a print from 2008 and that may be in part due to the work involved in putting this show together.

"I've kept him kind of busy," Chapin admits. "(But) he's been painting a lot. He tends to do that. He does a bunch of print making and then he'll go into his painting, and then he'll come back. He has just ordered a new shipment of copper plates."

So, while you make your way through the in-depth, but never boring, exhibition at Milwaukee Art Museum, Colescott might be in his studio out in Hollandale getting started on the next show.