Printmakers celebrate Wisconsin history

“Winter Sport,” a hand-colored block print by George Raab on exhibit at the Elvehjem Museum of Art.

SESQUICENTENNIAL FLASHBACK Historical highlights UW’s first students in 1849 studied physics, civil polity, algebra and Latin – all the trimmings of a classical education. But from its earliest days, the university has also strived to include courses that would teach its graduates practical skills so that they could contribute to the state’s economy. UW’s first course catalogs, for instance, include selections in “useful arts” and “industrial pursuits,” such as fundamentals of agriculture. That healthy tension is still reflected at UW by a combination of traditional liberal-arts courses and real-life experiences such as practicums and internships. People in our past Charles Wakeley, one-half of the university’s first graduating class in 1854, helped found the Wisconsin Alumni Association seven years after his graduation to aid his alma mater in surviving the lean state budgets in Civil War times. In 1861, the organization served 40 alumni; today, WAA provides a link to campus for 270,000 living alumni, including 37,000 WAA members and 116 alumni clubs around the world. … Every time you visit a national park you’re enjoying the legacy of a former UW student, John Muir. He attended UW from 1860 to 1863, leaving after his junior year en route to becoming a world-famous naturalist who helped found the Sierra Club. Considered the father of the national park system, he influenced the federal government to help save redwoods and other natural treasures. Campus memories “When I was in my first year of graduate school and disillusioned about continuing I spoke with David Lemal, then of the chemistry department. He gave me a great pep talk and I remember him telling me that research is often an up and down experience, but he stressed that when ‘it’s up’ it can be a real high. Of course he was correct,I continued with my studies and went on to receive my Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry from the School of Pharmacy. I definitely have witnessed that up and down in my own research in academia, and have very many times felt that great ‘high’ when the research went well.” — Michael Mokotoff, MS ’63, PhD ’66 To offer your own memory, visit Share the Memories on the sesquicentennial Web site.

In many respects, Wisconsin’s printmakers have reflected Wisconsin’s history. Even before statehood, artists had begun illustrating travelers’ accounts of the region in lithographs, woodcuts and engravings. And the tradition of using prints to record Wisconsin’s historical odyssey continues, according to Andrew Stevens, curator of prints at the Elvehjem Museum of Art.

Stevens also is curator of a new exhibition at the museum, 150 Years of Wisconsin Printmaking. The exhibition will take visitors on a tour of the state’s heritage as preserved by 70 artists including John Steuart Curry, the UW’s – and the nation’s – first artist-in- residence at an American university; Aaron Bohrod; Otto Becker; William Weege; Warrington Colescott; Dean Meeker; Frances Myers and others.

Some of the artists contributed to Wisconsin’s history as well as recorded it. The work of Louis Kurz, for example, speaks for German immigrants who established a center of commercial printing in Milwaukee during the last half of the 19th century. “When they were not supporting themselves printing flyers, posters, labels and letterhead, they captured images of Wisconsin cities and towns,” Stevens says.

Offset printing replaced handmade lithographs for commercial use early in this century, although trade schools still taught lithography. When the Federal Arts Project offered artists in Wisconsin a living wage to create original art for public buildings in the 1930s and ’40s, younger artists in the program often chose prints as their medium. Some of those artists later taught at UW after World War II and incorporated printmaking into the art curriculum.

Visitors will find another, more recent bit of Wisconsin history in the late Joe Wilfer, who collaborated with some of the country’s most innovative artists, including Julian Schnabel, Louise Nevelson and Chuck Close. After earning two degrees from UW, Wilfer and his brother Michael founded the Upper U.S. Paper Mill in Oregon, Wis. From 1976-80 he was director of the Madison Art Center. He eventually became publications director for the prestigious Pace Editions and director of Pace Editions Spring Street Workshop in New York.

“Until his untimely death in 1995, he was devoted to making works on paper,” Stevens says. “From his early days making paper in Wisconsin through his groundbreaking work with other artists, he continually asserted the importance of paper in works of art.”

Wilfer’s contributions will be commemorated at the Elvehjem through an exhibition in his honor, Joe Wilfer: Collaborations on Paper, a parallel to the Wisconsin Printmaking exhibition.

Both shows will run Nov. 21 through Jan. 10 at the Elvehjem. Stevens will open the exhibitions with a gallery talk Nov. 21 at 5:30 p.m.; a free public reception will follow at 6 p.m. When the Printmaking exhibition closes in Madison, it will make stops in Sturgeon Bay, Marshfield, Neenah and West Bend. For more information, contact the museum at 263-2240.