Frank Utpatel

The Gallery seeks early prints by Frank Utpatel. Contact: info@GalleryofWisconsinArt.com

BORN: 1905, in Waukegan, IL

DIED: 1980, in Mazomanie, WI

Born in 1905, Frank Albert Bernhardt Utpatel was active and/or lived in Wisconsin and Illinois.  

Frank studied at the Milwaukee Art Institute and Art Institute of Chicago.

Active in various New Deal and WPA programs, he is most known for his engravings and block prints. He was a well-known artist in the state when selected to be a part of the works programs. All artists involved in Wisconsin's Federal Art Project were asked to create works of art to be displayed in public buildings such as banks, post offices, schools and hospitals. The art that came out of Wisconsin's Federal Art Project is valuable because it gives us a window into the lives of people in Wisconsin during the years of the Depression.

His work with the Federal Art Project helped launch his national career and led to exhibitions in New York and Chicago. He also did paintings, and illustrations for various magazines and books later in his career. Frank's woodcut illustrations would later be used for many novels' cover art, especially Arkham House's H.P. Lovecraft books.

Utpatel entered the field of illustration art because of his friendships with various writers and autors. Although he reportedly did some interior illustrations, he is best known for his covers.

Many of Utpatel's illustrations appear to be woodcuts, because they were. Woodcut prints were the art media that he came to specialize early in his career. He garnering a modest reputation for his woodcuts in the field of fine art and is very important as a New Deal artist depicting the American Scene.

Utpatel's covers tended to consist of moody, black-and-white images, like silhouetted figures stalking through a forest. But he could also project a sense of humour in illustrations of strange figures and creatures. He also produced a cover with an arresting image of an enormous yellow bat clutching a man in its jaws.  Utpatel is of great importance to the early illustration art of fantasy and horror.

There is a collection of Utpatel's work in the WI State Historical Society's Library and Archives includes 16 images featured in this gallery, along with three other illustrations done as part of the Federal Art Project.