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Paul Lamantia

March 02, 2024

Paul Christopher Lamantia (born 1938) is an American visual artist, known for paintings and drawings that explore dark psychosexual imagery.[1][2][3] He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and emerged in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the larger group of artists known as the Chicago Imagists.[4][5][6]

Paul Lamantia
Born
Paul Christopher Lamantia

1938 (age 85–86)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
EducationSchool of the Art Institute of Chicago
Known forPainting, drawing
StyleFigurative, Chicago Imagism, art brut
WebsitePaul Lamantia

Lamantia often depicts surreal, distorted figures in transgressive scenarios, rendered in a formally structured, dizzying patterns, line and high-key color; he has been influenced by Expressionism, High Renaissance and Baroque art, and psychoanalytic theory.[7][8][2][9] Art historian Robert Cozzolino suggests his work implies imply multiple levels of meaning: allegories of lust, confessional hallucinations about sexual anxiety, visions from an altered state.[9] Critic Dennis Adrian called him "a Chicago maverick"[10] whose work "challenges and wrenches" the limits of acceptability and taste,[11] while Franz Schulze described him as one of the city's "most brutal and coldly expressionist" figurative artists.[8]

Lamantia attracted early attention from artist Jean Dubuffet[6] and has been recognized with retrospectives at the Koehnline Museum of Art (2016), Loyola University (2002) and the Hyde Park Art Center (1982), and reviews in national art publications[12][13][14][15][16] and major newspapers.[17][18][8] His work has been shown at the Art Institute of Chicago[19][20] and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago[21][22] and sits in their permanent collections,[23][24] as well as those of the Smithsonian American Art Museum[25] and Milwaukee Art Museum,[26] among many.[27][28] Lamantia lives and works in Chicago.

Paul Lamantia, Like Father Like Son, mixed media, 31 1/8"x 41 5/16", 1968, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts collection.

Life and career edit

Lamantia was born Walter Zombek in Chicago, Illinois in 1938, and adopted by Joseph and Nellie Lamantia at age two. His early visual education included underground comics, museum trips with his mother, his father's collection of 1940s soft-core porn and girlie culture novelties, and a 14-week scholarship he won to study drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago.[29][30] As a teenager, he studied under advertising artist Jules Zinni, intending to become a commercial illustrator.[4][5] Between 1957–9, he attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago, learning figure drawing from artist-illustrator William Mosby, and worked as an advertising graphic designer, before enlisting in the U.S. Army Reserves in 1960.[4][30] In the service, his caricature skills came to light and he painted sixteen murals at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and Fort Riley, Kansas.[31]

After his service, Lamantia took night classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and resumed advertising work, but soon elected to pursue a fine art career.[4] He studied at SAIC with professors Ray Yoshida, Whitney Halstead and Vera Burdick, and was a contemporary of the Chicago Imagists.[32] Lamantia exhibited in shows at the city's key poles of artistic influence, the Art Institute of Chicago ("Chicago and Vicinity," 1962, 1964, 1965) and the Illinois Institute of Technology ("The Sunken City Rises," 1964; "Phalanx," 1965). In 1964, after taking additional education courses at the University of Chicago, he earned a BFA, followed by an MFA in 1968.[4][29] During this time, he discovered and was inspired by Dr. Hans Prinzhorn's 1922 book, Artistry of the Mentally Ill—a key influence on Jean Dubuffet's Art Brut—which emphasized the unconscious, hallucinations, and interior reality.[31]

Lamantia became known for his obsessive drawings through group exhibitions at the Hyde Park Art Center, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (MCA), and Art Institute.[5][4] In 1972, Jean Dubuffet took notice of Lamantia's work, eventually exchanging work with him and hosting him in Paris.[31][6][5] In subsequent years, Lamantia showed in regular solo exhibitions at Zaks Gallery (1977–2000), and was featured in shows at the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1975), School of the Art Institute ("Visions", 1976),[19] Crocker Art Museum ("The Chicago Connection", 1976–7, traveling), Smithsonian Institution ("Chicago Currents," 1979–80, traveling),[33] Artists Space, New York ("Recent Art from Chicago," 1986),[34] Figge Art Museum ("Chicago Imagism: A 25-Year Survey," 1994), and MCA Chicago ("Art in Chicago 1945–1995").[21][27][32][11]

In addition to his art career, Lamantia taught art in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) from 1966 to 1993.[4][30] After retiring from CPS, he continued to teach workshops and courses and lecture at institutions including SAIC, Columbia College, International Academy of Design and Technology, Loyola University, Harry S. Truman College, the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and Cincinnati Art Museum.[29] His art is informed by travels he and his wife, Sheryl R. Johnson, have undertaken to thirty-four countries, including China, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, Tibet, Turkey, and many throughout Europe.[29]

Work edit

 
Paul Lamantia, Cancellation, oil on canvas, 95" x 77", 1974–5.

Critical consensus on Lamantia's art centers around four aspects, its: 1) "high voltage"[35] emotional impact;[30][8][36] 2) pushing of form and subject matter to aesthetic and psychological extremes;[9][30][4][11] 3) meticulous, expressive technique;[37] and 4) outsider status beyond mainstream critical categories, which has led some to classify him as an Art brut artist.[5][30][9][1][3] In 1972, Dennis Adrian described it as "harsh and hysterical" and "profoundly shocking";[11] four decades later, Margaret Hawkins called it "manic, roiling, chaotic, terrifying, and maybe terrified" work that "seethe[s] with sticky, undiluted id."[30]

Lamantia's work reflects a wide consumption of art history,[9] drawing inspiration from Expressionist and Surrealist "automatism", masters such as Titian and Rubens, Outsider art and Cubism, the Chicago "Monster Roster" school and Peter Saul, comic artists Robert Crumb and Basil Wolverton, as well as Freudian and Jungian theories of the unconscious.[6][30][9][38][39] In terms of chronology and psychology, critics write that he "hovers at the edge" of the Chicago Imagists, sharing themes of sex, aggression, and psychological menace and a tendency towards vernacular expression.[40][37][1] In the historical volume, Art in Chicago (2018), curator Robert Cozzolino suggests his peripherality—as with Chicagoans Linda Kramer and Robert Lostutter—results partly from not exhibiting under the "Hairy Who" or similar banners, but mainly, from his more thematically startling and ferocious depictions of socially transgressive sexuality.[41][9][42] Critics Peter Frank[43] and Hawkins concur, describing his work as rawer than the Imagists, with cartooniness a "wrapper for something scarier, less aesthetic and polite."[30][3] Writer-gallerist John Corbett identified Lamantia as a "psychosexual outlaw, making utterly original work with one foot inside and one outside the Imagist camp."[5]

Painting edit

Lamantia first gained notoriety in the 1960s for his unfiltered, high-energy drawings.[44][9] By the early 1970s, critics suggested that his more controlled and deliberately composed paintings had caught up in terms of freedom of invention and integration of feeling and execution.[11][8][7][9] In monumental works, he depicted surreal, ambiguously-sexed figures and groups—sirens, buxom temptresses, leather-clad dominatrixes, voyeurs, and mutant beasts—undergoing dizzying transformations into giant insects, plant-like forms and horrific organic conglomerations, while engaged in discomfiting, sometimes predatory sexual dramas.[45][11][38][4] In these paintings, faces, skin, sinuous legs, torpedo breasts, muscles and organs blend or morph into invented anatomies of snapping jaws, sprouting eyes, bird beaks, claws, tentacles and machine, while skin, makeup, masking, tattooing, scarring and costuming become indistinguishable, rendering interpretation compellingly ambiguous, for many critics.[30][11][38][4][9]

 
Paul Lamantia, Blood Love, oil on canvas, 60" x 48", 1993.

In works such as Cancellation (1974–5) and Night Language 2 (1977),[46] Lamantia set his scenes in garish, compressed domestic interiors that recall the harrowing rooms of Francis Bacon and Max Beckmann.[1][47][4] Critics described the work as a tangle of bewildering abstract patterns, high-key color, frenzied line and strong contour, with contradictory forms that lacked a focal point or orientation to distinguish figure from ground.[11][48][45][30] Simultaneously, they noted a clear level of formal structural integrity deriving from what Franz Schulze called Lamantia's "controlled wildness"[8] and his absorption of classical genre compositions of female nudes in interiors from Titian to Matisse.[7][30]

 
Paul Lamantia, The Collector of Unfulfilled Dreams, oil on canvas, 55" x 49", 2010.

In the 1980s, critics observed that Lamantia's paintings, while thematically as unnerving as ever, became leaner, more painterly and open, and reminiscent of Willem de Kooning's savage "Woman" paintings.[49][7][35][3] Works from Whisper (1980) to Blood Love (1993)[46] featured a subdued, finessed palette of whites, light yellows, pastels and deep purples, that enhanced the rhythms of streamlined, Baroque compositions employing illusionistic, theatrical space.[49][7][47][30] Alan Artner compared the technique to Bacon's appropriation of Monet-like painterliness in his disquieting works; Buzz Spector felt this joy in painting offset a potentially moralistic tone in the work.[47][50] Lamantia's figuration also evolved towards an H.P. Lovecraftian, sci-fi-like "mechano-morphism,"[43] with "metallic musculature suggesting malevolent sexual machinery"[50] merging with his existing re-grafted mutations.[3][49]

Lamantia's paintings from the later 1990s onward returned to the more claustrophobic compositions of earlier work, incorporating the linear freedom of his drawings, but in a "less manic and tortured" form that critics described as "an amiable kind of chaos."[30][51] James Yood called the work a "strangely hypnotic" catalogue of unmediated male desire "immersed in sheer pictorial thrill."[2] He suggested that Lamantia's uncensored, possibly confessional frankness about contradictory aspects of desire in works such as Still Lives (1995)[46] elevated what might seem retrograde or misogynist, much like Picasso's 1920s–1930s work.[2] Late paintings, such as The Solution (2010) or The Collector of Unfulfilled Dreams (2012)—Lamantia's "unnerving reworking of the Garden of Eden story"—feature a greater emphasis on the materiality of paint, the expressive possibilities of gestural accident, and flirtation with abstraction.[9][46]

Drawing edit

In the 1960s, Lamantia attracted notice for drawings packed with sprawling comic- and Miró-like forms and explosive energy, that some compared to the fantasy-scapes of Roberto Matta or Hieronymous Bosch.[12][44][5][9] Working in ball-point and felt-tip pen, pastel, gouache, collage, color pencil and crayons, he produced frenzied, intricate work that was unstable in its emotion and forms, and suggested a spontaneity that critics said was belied by its technical richness and finesse.[45][1][49][50][30] Robert Cozzolino called works of the time, such as Like Father Like Son (1968), "extraordinarily raw and vulnerable" treatments of family, identity and emotional states, that portrayed the angst of the period and its "the-personal-is-the-political" ethos.[52][44][53]

 
Paul Lamantia, Peep Freak, mixed media, 35" x 45", 2001.

Critics hold that the drawings, while thematically similar, are neither tangential nor mere studies, but autonomous, open-ended works that explore oneiric, metaphysical and visionary pursuits with a searing, concentrated energy.[37][1][54] Cozzolino, and others, consider the drawings to be among the least well-known, understudied bodies of work among artists of Lamantia's generation.[9][37] John Corbett, nonetheless, suggests that this work built "a historical bridge between the rough-hewn feel of earlier Monster Roster artists and the sleek, cartoonish gleam of later Imagist work."[12][44][5]

Lamantia's drawing has continued apace his painting in subsequent decades, including some monochromatic drawings in the 1970s, such as Your Favorite Sores Bronze Plated in Raw Meat and The Vendor of His Scars (Art Institute of Chicago collection), both from 1977.[1] In the catalogue to Lamantia's 2016 retrospective, Margaret Hawkins described late drawings, such as Oddball Losers (2000) and Peep Freak (2001), as gorgeous explorations of "infinite inner space" that flow "directly from the subconscious" and teem with provocative sensory information[30] Since 2014, Lamantia has started painting on frozen pizza boxes, leaving portions of the color food photography to peek through and morph into skin and eyes; these works share an affinity with 16th-century Mannerist Giuseppe Arcimboldo's "whimsically grotesque portraits."[30][54] In addition to his drawings, Lamantia has also created prints at Anchor Press in Chicago and Lakeside Press in Michigan.[29]

Collections and recognition edit

Lamantia's work belongs to public collections, including those of the Smithsonian American Art Museum,[25] Art Institute of Chicago,[23] Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago,[24] Collection de l'art brut (Lausanne, Switzerland),[55][56] Milwaukee Art Museum,[26] Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, Elmhurst Art Museum, Figge Art Museum,[57] Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts,[58] Brauer Museum of Art, Smart Museum of Art, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art,[59] The Playboy Collection, Illinois State Museum, DePaul Art Museum,[60] Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art,[61] and Wright Museum of Art,[62] among others.[27][28] In 1984, he was recognized with the Art Institute of Chicago's Logan Prize.

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Adrian, Dennis. "Paul Lamantia," Catalogue essay, Paul Lamantia: Paintings and Drawings, Cincinnati, OH: Art Academy of Cincinnati, 2000.
  2. ^ a b c d Yood, James. "Paul Lamantia," Artforum, March 1996.
  3. ^ a b c d e Bonesteel, Michael. "Paul Lamantia," Artforum, January 1983.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Boris, Staci. "Paul Lamantia," Art in Chicago 1945-1995, Museum of Contemporary Art, ed. Lynne Warren, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996, p. 265. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Corbett, John. "Ugly Beauty," In Corbett, John and Jim Dempsey, Inside Out, Catalogue, Chicago: Corbett vs. Dempsey Modern Art, 2006.
  6. ^ a b c d Harpaz, Nathan. Introduction, Under the Skin of the Subconscious, Catalogue, Des Plaines, IL: Koehnline Museum of Art, 2016.
  7. ^ a b c d e Adrian, Dennis. Catalogue essay, Paul Lamantia: A Review – 1967-1982, Chicago: Hyde Park Art Center, 1982.
  8. ^ a b c d e f Schulze, Franz. "Illustrators, if you'll excuse the expressions," Chicago Daily News, Panorama, October 25–26, 1975, p. 12-13.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Cozzolino, Robert. "Subconscious Eye," Subconscious Eye, Catalogue, Chicago: Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, 2013.
  10. ^ Adrian, Dennis. "Lamantia and Hall, in top form at 620," Chicago Daily News, November 12–13, 1977, p. 14.
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Adrian, Dennis. "Out of the semi-underground, the art of Paul Lamantia," Chicago Daily News, November 4–5, 1972.
  12. ^ a b c Halstead, Whitney. "Chicago," Artforum, Summer 1968, p. 63–5.
  13. ^ Schjeldahl, Peter. "Letter from Chicago," Art in America, July–August 1976, p. 52–8.
  14. ^ Frueh, Joanna. "Re-Vamping the vamp," Arts Magazine, October 1982.
  15. ^ Moser, Charlotte. "Paul Lamantia," ARTnews, January 1983.
  16. ^ Kind, Joshua. "Paul Lamantia," New Art Examiner, November 1975, p. 13.
  17. ^ Buchholz, Barbara B. "Lamantia melds erotic and macabre," Chicago Tribune, Section 7, December 22, 1995, p. 63.
  18. ^ Froelke-Coburn, Marcia. "For Lamantia, art imitates nightmares," Chicago Sun-Times, November 12, 1986.
  19. ^ a b The Art Institute of Chicago. Visions, Painting and Sculpture: Distinguished Alumni 1945 to the Present, Catalogue, Chicago: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1976.
  20. ^ The Art Institute of Chicago. 80th Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity, Catalogue, Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 1984.
  21. ^ a b Warren, Lynne, et al Ed. Art in Chicago 1945-1995, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, New York: Thames and Hudson, 1996, p. 265. Retrieved May 1, 2018.
  22. ^ Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Violence! in Recent American Art, Nov 8, 1968–Jan 12, 1969, Exhibition catalogue. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  23. ^ a b The Art Institute of Chicago. Paul LaMantia, The Vendor of His Scars, 1977, Collection. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  24. ^ a b Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Paul LaMantia, Paper Doll Lounge, 1985, Collection. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  25. ^ a b Smithsonian American Art Museum. Paul Lamantia, Laughter from a Tomb, No Wonder the Neighbors Complain, 1974-5, Collection. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  26. ^ a b Milwaukee Art Museum.Paul Lamantia, X Day, 2004 Collection. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  27. ^ a b c Art Academy of Cincinnati. Paul Lamantia: Paintings and Drawings, Cincinnati, OH: Art Academy of Cincinnati, 2000.
  28. ^ a b Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. "Subconscious Eye," Subconscious Eye, Catalogue, Chicago: Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, 2013.
  29. ^ a b c d e Art Institute of Chicago. Paul Lamantia, Artists Oral History Archive, Interview with Linda L. Kramer and Sandra Binion, 2010. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  30. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Hawkins, Margaret. "His Soul is Still Dancing," Under the Skin of the Subconscious, Catalogue, Des Plaines, IL: Koehnline Museum of Art, 2016.
  31. ^ a b c Cozzolino, Robert. "Subconscious Eye," Exhibition materials, Chicago: Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, 2013.
  32. ^ a b Hyde Park Art Center. Catalogue essay, Paul Lamantia: A Review – 1967-1982, Chicago: Hyde Park Art Center, 1982.
  33. ^ Smithsonian Institution. Chicago Currents, Koffler Foundation Collection, Catalogue, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979.
  34. ^ Artists Space. Recent Art from Chicago, Catalogue, New York: Artists Space, 1986.
  35. ^ a b Elliott, David. "Cunning painter of 'smart set,'" Chicago Sun-Times, Show, March 29, 1981, p. 20-1.
  36. ^ Lyon, Christopher. "Coming in from the cold." Chicago Magazine, May 1984.
  37. ^ a b c d Yood, James. "Recent Art from Chicago: An Essay," Recent Art from Chicago, Catalogue, New York: Artists Space, 1986.
  38. ^ a b c Adrian, Dennis. "Two decades of painting in Chicago: Beneath the 'Surfaces'", New Art Examiner, December 1987, p. 26–9.
  39. ^ Adrian, Dennis. "Critical reflections on the development of Chicago Imagism," Chicago Imagism: A 25-Year Survey, Catalogue, Davenport, IA: Davenport Museum of Art. 1994.
  40. ^ Newman, Christine. "When Jim Met Gladys," Chicago Magazine, February 2011.
  41. ^ Cozzolino, Robert. "Raw Nerves," In Art in Chicago: A History from the Fire to Now, Ed. Taft, Maggie and Robert Cozzolino, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2018, p. 390.
  42. ^ Hyde Park Art Center. Hyde Park Art Center: 1939–1976, Chicago: Hyde Park Art Center, 1976, p.32.
  43. ^ a b Frank, Peter. "Hunting the Emergent American: On the Trail of the Exxon National," National Arts Guide, January–February 1981, p. 16-24.
  44. ^ a b c d Dempsey, Jim. "Inside Out: Briggs Dyer & Paul Lamantia Drawings & Paintings from the 1960s," In Corbett, John and Jim Dempsey, Inside Out, Catalogue, Chicago: Corbett vs. Dempsey Modern Art, 2006.
  45. ^ a b c Adrian, Dennis. "Socko and subtle. Lamantia and Flood." Chicago Daily News, May 25–26, 1974, p. 11.
  46. ^ a b c d Paul Lamantia website. Paintings. Retrieved October 30, 2018.
  47. ^ a b c Artner, Alan G. Review, Chicago Tribune, April 10, 1981, Section 2, p. 13.
  48. ^ Adrian, Dennis. "Paul Lamantia," Visions, Painting and Sculpture: Distinguished Alumni 1945 to the Present, Catalogue, Chicago: The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1976, p. 100-1.
  49. ^ a b c d Artner, Alan G. "Lamantia still tilts with towers of strength," Chicago Tribune, November 14, 1986.
  50. ^ a b c Spector, Buzz. "Paul Lamantia," Artforum, January 1987.
  51. ^ Miller, Chris. "Review: Subconscious Eye/Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art," New City, May 21, 2013. Retrieved October 30, 2018.
  52. ^ Cozzolino, Robert. "Excellence on Paper from Colonial to Contemporary, No. 7.: Like Father Like Son by Paul Lamantia," Drawing Magazine. Winter 2015.
  53. ^ Williams, Austin R. "Curator's Choice," Drawing, Winter, 2015, p. 83.
  54. ^ a b Paul Lamantia website. Works on Paper. Retrieved October 30, 2018.
  55. ^ Collection de l'Art Brut. Lamantia, Paul, Grand Dessin. Collections. Retrieved June 19, 2023.
  56. ^ Collection de l'Art Brut. Lamantia, Paul, The Door Way of the Demons. Collections. Retrieved June 19, 2023.
  57. ^ Figge Art Museum. Paul Lamantia, Early Daze, 2003, Collection. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  58. ^ Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.Paul Lamantia, Collections. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  59. ^ Minneapolis Institute of Art. Paul Lamantia, Storage for a Seasonal Home, 1972–3, Collections. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  60. ^ DePaul Art Museum. "DePaul Art Museum receives gift of 114 works by Chicago-based artists," News. August 18, 2016. Retrieved May 20, 2021.
  61. ^ Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago. Permanent Collection. Retrieved May 20, 2021.
  62. ^ Wright Museum of Art Paul Lamantia, Collection. Wright Museum of Art, Beloit College. Retrieved May 20, 2021.

External links edit

  • Paul Lamantia official website
  • Paul Lamantia, Artists Oral History Archive, Art Institute of Chicago. Interview with Linda L. Kramer and Sandra Binion, 2010.

March 02, 2024
paul, lamantia, paul, christopher, lamantia, born, 1938, american, visual, artist, known, paintings, drawings, that, explore, dark, psychosexual, imagery, studied, school, institute, chicago, emerged, 1960s, 1970s, part, larger, group, artists, known, chicago,. Paul Christopher Lamantia born 1938 is an American visual artist known for paintings and drawings that explore dark psychosexual imagery 1 2 3 He studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and emerged in the 1960s and 1970s as part of the larger group of artists known as the Chicago Imagists 4 5 6 Paul LamantiaBornPaul Christopher Lamantia1938 age 85 86 Chicago Illinois U S EducationSchool of the Art Institute of ChicagoKnown forPainting drawingStyleFigurative Chicago Imagism art brutWebsitePaul LamantiaLamantia often depicts surreal distorted figures in transgressive scenarios rendered in a formally structured dizzying patterns line and high key color he has been influenced by Expressionism High Renaissance and Baroque art and psychoanalytic theory 7 8 2 9 Art historian Robert Cozzolino suggests his work implies imply multiple levels of meaning allegories of lust confessional hallucinations about sexual anxiety visions from an altered state 9 Critic Dennis Adrian called him a Chicago maverick 10 whose work challenges and wrenches the limits of acceptability and taste 11 while Franz Schulze described him as one of the city s most brutal and coldly expressionist figurative artists 8 Lamantia attracted early attention from artist Jean Dubuffet 6 and has been recognized with retrospectives at the Koehnline Museum of Art 2016 Loyola University 2002 and the Hyde Park Art Center 1982 and reviews in national art publications 12 13 14 15 16 and major newspapers 17 18 8 His work has been shown at the Art Institute of Chicago 19 20 and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 21 22 and sits in their permanent collections 23 24 as well as those of the Smithsonian American Art Museum 25 and Milwaukee Art Museum 26 among many 27 28 Lamantia lives and works in Chicago Paul Lamantia Like Father Like Son mixed media 31 1 8 x 41 5 16 1968 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts collection Contents 1 Life and career 2 Work 2 1 Painting 2 2 Drawing 3 Collections and recognition 4 References 5 External linksLife and career editLamantia was born Walter Zombek in Chicago Illinois in 1938 and adopted by Joseph and Nellie Lamantia at age two His early visual education included underground comics museum trips with his mother his father s collection of 1940s soft core porn and girlie culture novelties and a 14 week scholarship he won to study drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago 29 30 As a teenager he studied under advertising artist Jules Zinni intending to become a commercial illustrator 4 5 Between 1957 9 he attended the American Academy of Art in Chicago learning figure drawing from artist illustrator William Mosby and worked as an advertising graphic designer before enlisting in the U S Army Reserves in 1960 4 30 In the service his caricature skills came to light and he painted sixteen murals at Fort Leonard Wood Missouri and Fort Riley Kansas 31 After his service Lamantia took night classes at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago SAIC and resumed advertising work but soon elected to pursue a fine art career 4 He studied at SAIC with professors Ray Yoshida Whitney Halstead and Vera Burdick and was a contemporary of the Chicago Imagists 32 Lamantia exhibited in shows at the city s key poles of artistic influence the Art Institute of Chicago Chicago and Vicinity 1962 1964 1965 and the Illinois Institute of Technology The Sunken City Rises 1964 Phalanx 1965 In 1964 after taking additional education courses at the University of Chicago he earned a BFA followed by an MFA in 1968 4 29 During this time he discovered and was inspired by Dr Hans Prinzhorn s 1922 book Artistry of the Mentally Ill a key influence on Jean Dubuffet s Art Brut which emphasized the unconscious hallucinations and interior reality 31 Lamantia became known for his obsessive drawings through group exhibitions at the Hyde Park Art Center Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago MCA and Art Institute 5 4 In 1972 Jean Dubuffet took notice of Lamantia s work eventually exchanging work with him and hosting him in Paris 31 6 5 In subsequent years Lamantia showed in regular solo exhibitions at Zaks Gallery 1977 2000 and was featured in shows at the American Academy of Arts and Letters 1975 School of the Art Institute Visions 1976 19 Crocker Art Museum The Chicago Connection 1976 7 traveling Smithsonian Institution Chicago Currents 1979 80 traveling 33 Artists Space New York Recent Art from Chicago 1986 34 Figge Art Museum Chicago Imagism A 25 Year Survey 1994 and MCA Chicago Art in Chicago 1945 1995 21 27 32 11 In addition to his art career Lamantia taught art in Chicago Public Schools CPS from 1966 to 1993 4 30 After retiring from CPS he continued to teach workshops and courses and lecture at institutions including SAIC Columbia College International Academy of Design and Technology Loyola University Harry S Truman College the Art Academy of Cincinnati and Cincinnati Art Museum 29 His art is informed by travels he and his wife Sheryl R Johnson have undertaken to thirty four countries including China Egypt Hong Kong India Mexico Nepal Russia Thailand Tibet Turkey and many throughout Europe 29 Work edit nbsp Paul Lamantia Cancellation oil on canvas 95 x 77 1974 5 Critical consensus on Lamantia s art centers around four aspects its 1 high voltage 35 emotional impact 30 8 36 2 pushing of form and subject matter to aesthetic and psychological extremes 9 30 4 11 3 meticulous expressive technique 37 and 4 outsider status beyond mainstream critical categories which has led some to classify him as an Art brut artist 5 30 9 1 3 In 1972 Dennis Adrian described it as harsh and hysterical and profoundly shocking 11 four decades later Margaret Hawkins called it manic roiling chaotic terrifying and maybe terrified work that seethe s with sticky undiluted id 30 Lamantia s work reflects a wide consumption of art history 9 drawing inspiration from Expressionist and Surrealist automatism masters such as Titian and Rubens Outsider art and Cubism the Chicago Monster Roster school and Peter Saul comic artists Robert Crumb and Basil Wolverton as well as Freudian and Jungian theories of the unconscious 6 30 9 38 39 In terms of chronology and psychology critics write that he hovers at the edge of the Chicago Imagists sharing themes of sex aggression and psychological menace and a tendency towards vernacular expression 40 37 1 In the historical volume Art in Chicago 2018 curator Robert Cozzolino suggests his peripherality as with Chicagoans Linda Kramer and Robert Lostutter results partly from not exhibiting under the Hairy Who or similar banners but mainly from his more thematically startling and ferocious depictions of socially transgressive sexuality 41 9 42 Critics Peter Frank 43 and Hawkins concur describing his work as rawer than the Imagists with cartooniness a wrapper for something scarier less aesthetic and polite 30 3 Writer gallerist John Corbett identified Lamantia as a psychosexual outlaw making utterly original work with one foot inside and one outside the Imagist camp 5 Painting edit Lamantia first gained notoriety in the 1960s for his unfiltered high energy drawings 44 9 By the early 1970s critics suggested that his more controlled and deliberately composed paintings had caught up in terms of freedom of invention and integration of feeling and execution 11 8 7 9 In monumental works he depicted surreal ambiguously sexed figures and groups sirens buxom temptresses leather clad dominatrixes voyeurs and mutant beasts undergoing dizzying transformations into giant insects plant like forms and horrific organic conglomerations while engaged in discomfiting sometimes predatory sexual dramas 45 11 38 4 In these paintings faces skin sinuous legs torpedo breasts muscles and organs blend or morph into invented anatomies of snapping jaws sprouting eyes bird beaks claws tentacles and machine while skin makeup masking tattooing scarring and costuming become indistinguishable rendering interpretation compellingly ambiguous for many critics 30 11 38 4 9 nbsp Paul Lamantia Blood Love oil on canvas 60 x 48 1993 In works such as Cancellation 1974 5 and Night Language 2 1977 46 Lamantia set his scenes in garish compressed domestic interiors that recall the harrowing rooms of Francis Bacon and Max Beckmann 1 47 4 Critics described the work as a tangle of bewildering abstract patterns high key color frenzied line and strong contour with contradictory forms that lacked a focal point or orientation to distinguish figure from ground 11 48 45 30 Simultaneously they noted a clear level of formal structural integrity deriving from what Franz Schulze called Lamantia s controlled wildness 8 and his absorption of classical genre compositions of female nudes in interiors from Titian to Matisse 7 30 nbsp Paul Lamantia The Collector of Unfulfilled Dreams oil on canvas 55 x 49 2010 In the 1980s critics observed that Lamantia s paintings while thematically as unnerving as ever became leaner more painterly and open and reminiscent of Willem de Kooning s savage Woman paintings 49 7 35 3 Works from Whisper 1980 to Blood Love 1993 46 featured a subdued finessed palette of whites light yellows pastels and deep purples that enhanced the rhythms of streamlined Baroque compositions employing illusionistic theatrical space 49 7 47 30 Alan Artner compared the technique to Bacon s appropriation of Monet like painterliness in his disquieting works Buzz Spector felt this joy in painting offset a potentially moralistic tone in the work 47 50 Lamantia s figuration also evolved towards an H P Lovecraftian sci fi like mechano morphism 43 with metallic musculature suggesting malevolent sexual machinery 50 merging with his existing re grafted mutations 3 49 Lamantia s paintings from the later 1990s onward returned to the more claustrophobic compositions of earlier work incorporating the linear freedom of his drawings but in a less manic and tortured form that critics described as an amiable kind of chaos 30 51 James Yood called the work a strangely hypnotic catalogue of unmediated male desire immersed in sheer pictorial thrill 2 He suggested that Lamantia s uncensored possibly confessional frankness about contradictory aspects of desire in works such as Still Lives 1995 46 elevated what might seem retrograde or misogynist much like Picasso s 1920s 1930s work 2 Late paintings such as The Solution 2010 or The Collector of Unfulfilled Dreams 2012 Lamantia s unnerving reworking of the Garden of Eden story feature a greater emphasis on the materiality of paint the expressive possibilities of gestural accident and flirtation with abstraction 9 46 Drawing edit In the 1960s Lamantia attracted notice for drawings packed with sprawling comic and Miro like forms and explosive energy that some compared to the fantasy scapes of Roberto Matta or Hieronymous Bosch 12 44 5 9 Working in ball point and felt tip pen pastel gouache collage color pencil and crayons he produced frenzied intricate work that was unstable in its emotion and forms and suggested a spontaneity that critics said was belied by its technical richness and finesse 45 1 49 50 30 Robert Cozzolino called works of the time such as Like Father Like Son 1968 extraordinarily raw and vulnerable treatments of family identity and emotional states that portrayed the angst of the period and its the personal is the political ethos 52 44 53 nbsp Paul Lamantia Peep Freak mixed media 35 x 45 2001 Critics hold that the drawings while thematically similar are neither tangential nor mere studies but autonomous open ended works that explore oneiric metaphysical and visionary pursuits with a searing concentrated energy 37 1 54 Cozzolino and others consider the drawings to be among the least well known understudied bodies of work among artists of Lamantia s generation 9 37 John Corbett nonetheless suggests that this work built a historical bridge between the rough hewn feel of earlier Monster Roster artists and the sleek cartoonish gleam of later Imagist work 12 44 5 Lamantia s drawing has continued apace his painting in subsequent decades including some monochromatic drawings in the 1970s such as Your Favorite Sores Bronze Plated in Raw Meat and The Vendor of His Scars Art Institute of Chicago collection both from 1977 1 In the catalogue to Lamantia s 2016 retrospective Margaret Hawkins described late drawings such as Oddball Losers 2000 and Peep Freak 2001 as gorgeous explorations of infinite inner space that flow directly from the subconscious and teem with provocative sensory information 30 Since 2014 Lamantia has started painting on frozen pizza boxes leaving portions of the color food photography to peek through and morph into skin and eyes these works share an affinity with 16th century Mannerist Giuseppe Arcimboldo s whimsically grotesque portraits 30 54 In addition to his drawings Lamantia has also created prints at Anchor Press in Chicago and Lakeside Press in Michigan 29 Collections and recognition editLamantia s work belongs to public collections including those of the Smithsonian American Art Museum 25 Art Institute of Chicago 23 Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago 24 Collection de l art brut Lausanne Switzerland 55 56 Milwaukee Art Museum 26 Madison Museum of Contemporary Art Cincinnati Art Museum Elmhurst Art Museum Figge Art Museum 57 Contemporary Museum Honolulu Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts 58 Brauer Museum of Art Smart Museum of Art Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art Minneapolis Institute of Art 59 The Playboy Collection Illinois State Museum DePaul Art Museum 60 Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art 61 and Wright Museum of Art 62 among others 27 28 In 1984 he was recognized with the Art Institute of Chicago s Logan Prize References edit a b c d e f g Adrian Dennis Paul Lamantia Catalogue essay Paul Lamantia Paintings and Drawings Cincinnati OH Art Academy of Cincinnati 2000 a b c d Yood James Paul Lamantia Artforum March 1996 a b c d e Bonesteel Michael Paul Lamantia Artforum January 1983 a b c d e f g h i j k Boris Staci Paul Lamantia Art in Chicago 1945 1995 Museum of Contemporary Art ed Lynne Warren New York Thames and Hudson 1996 p 265 Retrieved May 1 2018 a b c d e f g h Corbett John Ugly Beauty In Corbett John and Jim Dempsey Inside Out Catalogue Chicago Corbett vs Dempsey Modern Art 2006 a b c d Harpaz Nathan Introduction Under the Skin of the Subconscious Catalogue Des Plaines IL Koehnline Museum of Art 2016 a b c d e Adrian Dennis Catalogue essay Paul Lamantia A Review 1967 1982 Chicago Hyde Park Art Center 1982 a b c d e f Schulze Franz Illustrators if you ll excuse the expressions Chicago Daily News Panorama October 25 26 1975 p 12 13 a b c d e f g h i j k l m Cozzolino Robert Subconscious Eye Subconscious Eye Catalogue Chicago Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art 2013 Adrian Dennis Lamantia and Hall in top form at 620 Chicago Daily News November 12 13 1977 p 14 a b c d e f g h Adrian Dennis Out of the semi underground the art of Paul Lamantia Chicago Daily News November 4 5 1972 a b c Halstead Whitney Chicago Artforum Summer 1968 p 63 5 Schjeldahl Peter Letter from Chicago Art in America July August 1976 p 52 8 Frueh Joanna Re Vamping the vamp Arts Magazine October 1982 Moser Charlotte Paul Lamantia ARTnews January 1983 Kind Joshua Paul Lamantia New Art Examiner November 1975 p 13 Buchholz Barbara B Lamantia melds erotic and macabre Chicago Tribune Section 7 December 22 1995 p 63 Froelke Coburn Marcia For Lamantia art imitates nightmares Chicago Sun Times November 12 1986 a b The Art Institute of Chicago Visions Painting and Sculpture Distinguished Alumni 1945 to the Present Catalogue Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1976 The Art Institute of Chicago 80th Exhibition by Artists of Chicago and Vicinity Catalogue Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago 1984 a b Warren Lynne et al Ed Art in Chicago 1945 1995 Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago New York Thames and Hudson 1996 p 265 Retrieved May 1 2018 Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Violence in Recent American Art Nov 8 1968 Jan 12 1969 Exhibition catalogue Retrieved November 2 2018 a b The Art Institute of Chicago Paul LaMantia The Vendor of His Scars 1977 Collection Retrieved November 2 2018 a b Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Paul LaMantia Paper Doll Lounge 1985 Collection Retrieved November 2 2018 a b Smithsonian American Art Museum Paul Lamantia Laughter from a Tomb No Wonder the Neighbors Complain 1974 5 Collection Retrieved November 2 2018 a b Milwaukee Art Museum Paul Lamantia X Day 2004 Collection Retrieved November 2 2018 a b c Art Academy of Cincinnati Paul Lamantia Paintings and Drawings Cincinnati OH Art Academy of Cincinnati 2000 a b Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art Subconscious Eye Subconscious Eye Catalogue Chicago Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art 2013 a b c d e Art Institute of Chicago Paul Lamantia Artists Oral History Archive Interview with Linda L Kramer and Sandra Binion 2010 Retrieved November 2 2018 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Hawkins Margaret His Soul is Still Dancing Under the Skin of the Subconscious Catalogue Des Plaines IL Koehnline Museum of Art 2016 a b c Cozzolino Robert Subconscious Eye Exhibition materials Chicago Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art 2013 a b Hyde Park Art Center Catalogue essay Paul Lamantia A Review 1967 1982 Chicago Hyde Park Art Center 1982 Smithsonian Institution Chicago Currents Koffler Foundation Collection Catalogue Washington DC Smithsonian Institution Press 1979 Artists Space Recent Art from Chicago Catalogue New York Artists Space 1986 a b Elliott David Cunning painter of smart set Chicago Sun Times Show March 29 1981 p 20 1 Lyon Christopher Coming in from the cold Chicago Magazine May 1984 a b c d Yood James Recent Art from Chicago An Essay Recent Art from Chicago Catalogue New York Artists Space 1986 a b c Adrian Dennis Two decades of painting in Chicago Beneath the Surfaces New Art Examiner December 1987 p 26 9 Adrian Dennis Critical reflections on the development of Chicago Imagism Chicago Imagism A 25 Year Survey Catalogue Davenport IA Davenport Museum of Art 1994 Newman Christine When Jim Met Gladys Chicago Magazine February 2011 Cozzolino Robert Raw Nerves In Art in Chicago A History from the Fire to Now Ed Taft Maggie and Robert Cozzolino Chicago The University of Chicago Press 2018 p 390 Hyde Park Art Center Hyde Park Art Center 1939 1976 Chicago Hyde Park Art Center 1976 p 32 a b Frank Peter Hunting the Emergent American On the Trail of the Exxon National National Arts Guide January February 1981 p 16 24 a b c d Dempsey Jim Inside Out Briggs Dyer amp Paul Lamantia Drawings amp Paintings from the 1960s In Corbett John and Jim Dempsey Inside Out Catalogue Chicago Corbett vs Dempsey Modern Art 2006 a b c Adrian Dennis Socko and subtle Lamantia and Flood Chicago Daily News May 25 26 1974 p 11 a b c d Paul Lamantia website Paintings Retrieved October 30 2018 a b c Artner Alan G Review Chicago Tribune April 10 1981 Section 2 p 13 Adrian Dennis Paul Lamantia Visions Painting and Sculpture Distinguished Alumni 1945 to the Present Catalogue Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago 1976 p 100 1 a b c d Artner Alan G Lamantia still tilts with towers of strength Chicago Tribune November 14 1986 a b c Spector Buzz Paul Lamantia Artforum January 1987 Miller Chris Review Subconscious Eye Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art New City May 21 2013 Retrieved October 30 2018 Cozzolino Robert Excellence on Paper from Colonial to Contemporary No 7 Like Father Like Son by Paul Lamantia Drawing Magazine Winter 2015 Williams Austin R Curator s Choice Drawing Winter 2015 p 83 a b Paul Lamantia website Works on Paper Retrieved October 30 2018 Collection de l Art Brut Lamantia Paul Grand Dessin Collections Retrieved June 19 2023 Collection de l Art Brut Lamantia Paul The Door Way of the Demons Collections Retrieved June 19 2023 Figge Art Museum Paul Lamantia Early Daze 2003 Collection Retrieved November 2 2018 Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Paul Lamantia Collections Retrieved November 2 2018 Minneapolis Institute of Art Paul Lamantia Storage for a Seasonal Home 1972 3 Collections Retrieved November 2 2018 DePaul Art Museum DePaul Art Museum receives gift of 114 works by Chicago based artists News August 18 2016 Retrieved May 20 2021 Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art Chicago Permanent Collection Retrieved May 20 2021 Wright Museum of Art Paul Lamantia Collection Wright Museum of Art Beloit College Retrieved May 20 2021 External links editPaul Lamantia official website Paul Lamantia Artists Oral History Archive Art Institute of Chicago Interview with Linda L Kramer and Sandra Binion 2010 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Paul Lamantia amp oldid 1165875896, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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