Following World War II, a group of Chicago artists attempted to capture emotional intensity on canvas – with monstrous results. Some of them were veterans of the war, and all were deeply affected by it. The artists’ intense subject matter and approach earned them the nickname “The Monster Roster.”
Artists including Leon Golub, George Cohen and Nancy Spero created existentialist art in an anxious postwar era. Their work was largely figurative, unlike the prevailing Abstract Expressionism of the time.
The first major exhibition of the Monster Roster just opened at the Smart Museum of Art on the campus of the University of Chicago and runs through June 12.
“Chicago Tonight” got an early look at this uncommon artwork.
TRANSCRIPT
Phil Ponce: Foreboding figures populate the paintings – and sculptures – of the artists of the Monster Roster.
John Corbett, co-curator: I think what they were onto was what we now think of as the “age of anxiety,” and they were early comers to the anxiety that Americans experienced in the postwar period, in the sense that there was a euphoric feel to success in the war but at what cost.
Jessica Moss, Smart Museum of Art: A lot of these artists had just served in WW II and had returned and were going to art school on the GI Bill. You can see a direct influence in the works of the Holocaust and war themes and sort of the struggle and the darker side of the human experience.
Ponce: But it wasn't all doom and gloom.
Corbett: It was a view that has a bleak exterior and a really optimistic interior in a way, which is that it’s looking at the potential for regeneration and rebirth, but it's all seen through the potential annihilation of humanity [laughs] so it is bleak. And it’s something posed in a philosophical manner, it’s reflective, it’s thinking about whether or not there are things that can be done and it’s causing people to look inward, really encouraging people to spend some time thinking about what inner demons they might have.
Ponce: The artist and critic Franz Schulze named the dozen or so artists “The Monster Roster” for their subject matter – and as a reference to the “Monsters of the Midway,” nickname of the University of Chicago football team.
Corbett: The Monster Roster was not a group in itself, it did not call itself a group, they didn’t band together. They were friends and colleagues and they all knew one another.
There are 16 unique artists in the show and not only that, but their work changes over time, so you have quite a stylistic diversity. But there are things that really pulled them together, there’s a lot of expression in the work. You’ll notice that the work is almost all figurative and in that sense was a response to the predominance of abstract expressionism in that period. There are craggy surfaces; there is a kind of overall crumblingness to some of the images. On the other hand, certain painters are much more – let’s say “slick” – it depends a lot on the personal proclivities of the artist.
Moss: They share a lot of similar sources of inspiration for their work.
They were looking at self-taught art, they looked at ethnographic material, they were interested in psychoanalysis – several of them actually underwent psychoanalysis themselves as a form of research for their work.
Corbett: The core formed around Leon Golub who was a very charismatic, important artist to all of the other artists, was a leading figure at that time and was the first of these artists to gain national and international recognition. He was here at the University of Chicago and was studying philosophy as well as studying art.
Moss: The works are all figurative but there are moments of abstraction in them as well, and certainly the processes and techniques they were using were pretty avant-garde for the time. Leon Golub was scraping canvases with meat cleavers or sticking two wet boards together and pulling them apart. The figure was central but they were exploring it in pretty adventurous ways.
Ponce: In a side gallery, the exhibition gives a nod to the Chicago Imagists who emerged a decade after the Monster Roster and the artists, like Jean DuBuffet, who influenced the Roster.
Overall the show gives a rare and thorough view of this under-appreciated group of fiercely creative Chicagoans.
Corbett: The Monster Roster has been subjected to smaller shows, not full-scale surveys, going back into the ‘50s and ‘60s, but there’s never been a show of this size and scope, really looking at pulling them all together, defining where the boundaries are, who’s in, who’s out, and that’s of course open for debate. We’re happy that this may put on the table something that someone could argue with.
About the show
The show is called “Monster Roster: Existentialist Art in Postwar Chicago.” It opened today at the Smart Museum of Art on the University of Chicago campus and it continues through June 12.
Resource: http://chicagotonight.wttw.com
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