UWM Union Art Gallery Features John Colt

Field Day
Courtesy Wright Museum of Art, Beloit College.

MILWAUKEE – The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Union Art Gallery, 2200 E. Kenwood Blvd., honors former UWM art professor John Colt (1926-1999) with a retrospective of his work, “Nature Close Up – The Work of John Colt.” Colt taught in the Department of Visual Art for 33 years.

This exhibition, part of UWM’s 50th anniversary celebration, opens with a reception on Friday, Sept. 22, from 5-8 p.m. and runs through Oct. 12. Colt’s widow, artist Ruth Kjaer, will be present at the opening.

Colt is best known for his giant canvases evoking nature at its most minute. “I’ve never been interested in the panoramic scenes as much as I have in the little areas – little realms of experience, nature close up,” he once wrote.

Colt is considered one of the most important Wisconsin artists of the 20th century. His paintings and drawings have been shown in more than 100 exhibitions at sites that include the Art Institute of Chicago, the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, Wis., the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. His work is in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum in New York, the Milwaukee Art Museum and many others.

“Nature Close Up” includes more than 40 paintings, prints, watercolors and pastels from the collections of UWM, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Racine Art Museum, the Haggerty Museum of Art at Marquette University, the Rahr-West Art Museum in Manitowoc, Wis., the Wright Museum of Art at Beloit College and individual collectors.

Hours for the Union Art Gallery are noon-5 p.m. Monday-Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and noon-7 p.m. Thursday. For more information, phone 414-229-6310 or visit www.unionartgallery.uwm.edu.

The Union Art Gallery is dedicated to the exhibition of diverse, contemporary art. The gallery presents a broad range of visual art by exhibiting work in all media by local, regional and national emerging and established artists. In addition, the gallery is an accessible space for UWM student artists to exhibit and learn.

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