Warrington Colescott

(1921, Oakland, CA – 2018, Hollandale, WI)

Biography

Warrington Colescott was born in Oakland, California in 1921. His parents, Warrington, Sr. and Lydia Colescott, moved to Oakland from Louisiana in 1920. Earning his B.A. and M.A. from the University of California at Berkeley, he continued with studies at the Grande Chaumiere, Paris, and the Slade School of Art, London. 

In 1942, Mr. Colescott was drafted into the Army and served in Okinawa late in World War II and in Korea as part of the postwar occupation. On his return, he got his master’s in art from Berkeley and began teaching drawing and painting at Long Beach Community College in California. He joined the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1949, where he taught painting and printmaking for 37 years.

He received prestigious fellowships with a Guggenheim in 1959, followed by a Fulbright in 1966, and National Endowments for the Art Artists Fellowships in 1976, 1979, and 1983. Colescott was a Professor of Art at the University of Wisconsin at Madison between 1949 and 1978 and was named Professor Emeritus in 1986. 

His early graphics were abstractions created in the medium of serigraphy. By the early 1960s he turned his focus on intaglio printmaking and his imagery evolved into social satire and commentary. He has produced a number of narrative satires, including one on the history of printmaking. 

Warrington Colescott, an innovative printmaker who deftly navigated the intersection between tragedy and high comedy with biting etchings about civil rights, history, politics and the Internal Revenue Service (which audited him), died on Sept. 10 at his farmhouse in Hollandale, Wis., southwest of Madison. He was 97. Mr. Colescott employed a figurative style that tinkered liberally with reality in wildly colorful, cartoonish and sometimes disquieting ways.

Colescott has exhibited internationally and his work is included in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Metropolitan Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Bibliotheque Nationale-Paris, and numerous other public collections.

Colescott, an innovative master of printmaking techniques, received his BA degree from the University of California-Berkeley in 1942.  Service as a First Lieutenant in the US Army during World War II interrupted his studies, but he returned to the University of California-Berkeley to complete his MA degree in 1947.   From then until 1949 he taught silk screen printing at Long Beach Community College, whereupon he moved to Madison, Wisconsin to become an art professor at University of Wisconsin - Madison.

From 1950-1953, Colescott studied painting at the Academie de La Grande Chaumiere, Paris  and in 1956-57 he received a Fulbright Fellowship Grant that allowed him to study printmaking/etching at the Slade School of Art, University of London, England; Colescott returned to London in 1968 to study printmaking/etching at the Charlotte Street Basement Studio under Brigit Skiold..  In the 1960s he was one of the first printmakers to use photographic elements in his work. 1965 saw Colescott receive the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship. From 1978-1984 he held the Leo Steppat Chair Professorship in the University of Wisconsin-Madison Graphics Art Department.  Over the years he was the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, Wisconsin Arts Board, Wisconsin Arts Council and the Wisconsin Governor’s Award in the Arts.  Colescott was a member of the Elvehjem Museum of Art Council (now the Chazen Museum of Art), UW-Madison, Madison Art Center, National Print Organization and Vice-President of Art for the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences Arts and Letters. 

Colescott’s printmaking often featured social satire via historical, literary and contemporary inspiration.   His work is in collections throughout the United States and Europe and was represented in 100 Years of Wisconsin Art, 1989 Milwaukee Sentinel Calendar and the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Portfolio.

SOURCES:

askART - Annex Galleries, Santa Rosa, CA 95404 

http://www.askart.com/artist/Warrington_Wickham_Colescott_Jr/72904/Warrington_Wickham_Colescott_Jr.aspx?sthp=colescott

Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA) Archives: https://wisconsinart.org/archives/artist/warrington-wickham-colescott/profile-29.aspx