The color and shape in these PHSColograms are visualized in depth with accurate, scientific drawings of exotic birds by Robert Lostutter, based on his watercolors from the late 1980s and mid-1990s. (art)n's collaboration with Lostutter, a key figure from the historical Hairy Who Movement in Chicago, is part of an on-going series of works with Chicago Imagist painters, including Ed Paschke, Karl Wirsum and a special tribute to Roger Brown.

In "Where the Wild Things Were," an Art in America review from May 1997 of Art in Chicago: 1945-1995 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Richard Vine wrote:

"The [Chicago Imagist] group's hegemony was established through a series of galvanizing exhibitions organized by Baum in the mid-'60s and early '70s. outside of Imagist circles, these shows and artists-indeed, any Chicago artist whose work is both figurative and funky (e.g. Hollis Sigler, with her faux-naif paintings of little lost women whose lot is mused upon in inscribed texts, or Robert Lostutter, who produces eerie, glowingly colored, close-up watercolor renderings of bound figures and men in gorgeous feather masks)-tend to get lumped promiscuously together, sometimes along with the Monster Roster as well."

Solo and group exhibitions of the artist's works include the Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art and Brooklyn Museum. Has won several grants and awards including the Richard Florsheim Art Fund, NEA Grant, Illinois Arts Council Grant and three Logan Prizes and a Tuthill Prize from the Art Institute of Chicago.

In Art in Chicago: 1945-1995, Staci Borris noted:

For over twenty-five years, Robert Lostutter has created fantastic, meticulous descriptions of the human figure. Born in Emporia, Kansas, in 1939, Lostutter came to Chicago to attend SAIC (1958-62). There he was influenced by John Rogers Cox, an academic painter who stressed the importance of preliminary drawings and glazing methods. Lostutter first received attention in the late 1960s for his oil paintings, though he was also producing watercolors, both as studies and independent works. During the mid-1970s, he began to concentrate on the watercolors, continuing his painstaking technique. The gemlike hues of his watercolors are built up through layers of tiny cross-hatches.

Lostutter's early iconography consists of voluminous figures in profile, heavily influenced by the Pop images of the artist Richard Lindner, placed against stylized, geometrically designed backgrounds. Lostutter subsequently developed a more personal vocabulary of individual or paired figures, sometimes masked, which seem to hang or float helplessly in atmospheric, illusory space.

Initially inspired by the artist's trips to Mexico and his interest in tropical birds and plants, the new motif of hybrid bird-men entered Lostutter's watercolors in the mid-1970s, corresponding with his increasing attention to the watercolor medium. Exotic, multicolored plumage is fused with faces and torsos of nude figures, addressing the issue of man's coexistence with nature.

References

Warren, Lynne (1996). Art in Chicago: 1945-1995. Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, Illinois.

Gallery Representation

Carrie Secrist Gallery