Paul Christopher Lamantia (born 1938) is an American visual artist, known for paintings and drawings that explore dark psychosexual imagery.Adrian, Dennis. "Paul Lamantia," Catalogue essay, Paul Lamantia: Paintings and Drawings, Cincinnati, OH: Art Academy of Cincinnati, 2000.Yood, James. "Paul Lamantia," Artforum, March 1996.Bonesteel, Michael. "Paul Lamantia," Artforum, January 1983. 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.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.Corbett, John. "Ugly Beauty," In Corbett, John and Jim Dempsey, Inside Out, Catalogue, Chicago: Corbett vs. Dempsey Modern Art, 2006.Harpaz, Nathan. Introduction, Under the Skin of the Subconscious, Catalogue, Des Plaines, IL: Koehnline Museum of Art, 2016.
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.Adrian, Dennis. Catalogue essay, Paul Lamantia: A Review – 1967-1982, Chicago: Hyde Park Art Center, 1982.Cozzolino, Robert. "Subconscious Eye," Subconscious Eye, Catalogue, Chicago: Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, 2013. 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. Critic Dennis Adrian called him "a Chicago maverick"Adrian, Dennis. "Lamantia and Hall, in top form at 620," Chicago Daily News, November 12–13, 1977, p. 14. whose work "challenges and wrenches" the limits of acceptability and taste,Adrian, Dennis. "Out of the semi-underground, the art of Paul Lamantia," Chicago Daily News, November 4–5, 1972. while Franz Schulze described him as one of the city's "most brutal and coldly expressionist" figurative artists.
Lamantia attracted early attention from artist Jean Dubuffet 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 publicationsHalstead, 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. and major newspapers.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.Schulze, Franz. "Illustrators, if you'll excuse the expressions," Chicago Daily News, Panorama, October 25–26, 1975, p. 12-13. His work has been shown at the Art Institute of ChicagoThe 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. and Museum of Contemporary Art, ChicagoWarren, 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. and sits in their permanent collections,The Art Institute of Chicago. Paul LaMantia, The Vendor of His Scars, 1977, Collection. Retrieved November 2, 2018.Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Paul LaMantia, Paper Doll Lounge, 1985, Collection. Retrieved November 2, 2018. as well as those of the Smithsonian American Art MuseumSmithsonian American Art Museum. Paul Lamantia, Laughter from a Tomb, No Wonder the Neighbors Complain, 1974-5, Collection. Retrieved November 2, 2018. and Milwaukee Art Museum,Milwaukee Art Museum.Paul Lamantia, X Day, 2004 Collection. Retrieved November 2, 2018. among many.Art Academy of Cincinnati. Paul Lamantia: Paintings and Drawings, Cincinnati, OH: Art Academy of Cincinnati, 2000.Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art. "Subconscious Eye," Subconscious Eye, Catalogue, Chicago: Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, 2013. Lamantia lives and works in Chicago.
Life and career 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.Art Institute of Chicago. Paul Lamantia, Artists Oral History Archive, Interview with Linda L. Kramer and Sandra Binion, 2010. Retrieved November 2, 2018.Hawkins, Margaret. "His Soul is Still Dancing," Under the Skin of the Subconscious, Catalogue, Des Plaines, IL: Koehnline Museum of Art, 2016. As a teenager, he studied under advertising artist Jules Zinni, intending to become a commercial illustrator. 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. In the service, his caricature skills came to light and he painted sixteen murals at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri and Fort Riley, Kansas.Cozzolino, Robert. "Subconscious Eye," Exhibition materials, Chicago: Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, 2013.
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. He studied at SAIC with professors Ray Yoshida, Whitney Halstead and Vera Burdick, and was a contemporary of the Chicago Imagists.Hyde Park Art Center. Catalogue essay, Paul Lamantia: A Review – 1967-1982, Chicago: Hyde Park Art Center, 1982. 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. 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.
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. In 1972, Jean Dubuffet took notice of Lamantia's work, eventually exchanging work with him and hosting him in Paris. 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), Crocker Art Museum ("The Chicago Connection", 1976–7, traveling), Smithsonian Institution ("Chicago Currents," 1979–80, traveling),Smithsonian Institution. Chicago Currents, Koffler Foundation Collection, Catalogue, Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1979. Artists Space, New York ("Recent Art from Chicago," 1986),Artists Space. Recent Art from Chicago, Catalogue, New York: Artists Space, 1986. Figge Art Museum ("Chicago Imagism: A 25-Year Survey," 1994), and MCA Chicago ("Art in Chicago 1945–1995").
In addition to his art career, Lamantia taught art in Chicago Public Schools (CPS) from 1966 to 1993. 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. 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.
Work
Critical consensus on Lamantia's art centers around four aspects, its: 1) "high voltage"Elliott, David. "Cunning painter of 'smart set,'" Chicago Sun-Times, Show, March 29, 1981, p. 20-1. emotional impact;Lyon, Christopher. "Coming in from the cold." Chicago Magazine, May 1984. 2) pushing of form and subject matter to aesthetic and psychological extremes; 3) meticulous, expressive technique;Yood, James. "Recent Art from Chicago: An Essay," Recent Art from Chicago, Catalogue, New York: Artists Space, 1986. and 4) outsider status beyond mainstream critical categories, which has led some to classify him as an Art brut artist. In 1972, Dennis Adrian described it as "harsh and hysterical" and "profoundly shocking"; four decades later, Margaret Hawkins called it "manic, roiling, chaotic, terrifying, and maybe terrified" work that "seethe[s] with sticky, undiluted id."
Lamantia's work reflects a wide consumption of art history, 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.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. 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.Newman, Christine. "When Jim Met Gladys," Chicago Magazine, February 2011. 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.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. Critics Peter FrankFrank, Peter. "Hunting the Emergent American: On the Trail of the Exxon National," National Arts Guide, January–February 1981, p. 16-24. and Hawkins concur, describing his work as rawer than the Imagists, with cartooniness a "wrapper for something scarier, less aesthetic and polite." Writer-gallerist John Corbett identified Lamantia as a "psychosexual outlaw, making utterly original work with one foot inside and one outside the Imagist camp."
Painting