Rosenblatt retires from teaching, not from painting the town

If there's one truth that Adolph Rosenblatt unquestionably ascribes to, it's that real life is more interesting than fiction. To prove it, he points to the sculpture of a campy Chinese restaurant with one wall cut away to reveal the diners within.

"Sure, it was a real place," he replies to a question about the "Gay Gardens," one of his painted sculptures that is on display at Chapman Hall. The Gay Gardens was a Chinese restaurant that used to stand at North Avenue and King Drive.

"If something is part of your reality, how can you not be affected by it?" he asks with a smile.

Rosenblatt, who is retiring from teaching art at UWM after 33 years, feels that urban Milwaukee has been his greatest inspiration as a painter and sculptor. In return, he has visually documented chunks of the near East Side community, creating large, environmental sculptures that are done in clay, fired in a kiln, and then painted. Rosenblatt favors installations with people (often modeled after family and friends), old buildings (blocks of them), and trees.

In fact, Rosenblatt prowls the East Side of Milwaukee as if the entire area were his backyard - and his work reflects pride of ownership. He has been known to set up his materials and sculpt on the sidewalk in front of his subject. Other times, he invites people to the tiny former grocery at King and North that he bought years ago to use as a studio.

"If someone wanted to get a sense of who Adolph is, all you would have to do is look at his work," says Steven Samerjan, professor of art who has team-taught with Rosenblatt and has known him for 20 years.

"He is a very direct person with an incisive, critical - in the most generous way - eye," asserts Samerjan. "It is manifested in the character he gives his work. He has a very natural way to attend to the landscape."

One of his large installations is a re-
creation of the Oriental Pharmacy lunch counter, complete with clay characters that are modeled after some of the real employees and patrons. The work, widely viewed throughout the city, took two years to complete and contains about 50 individual sculptures. Rosenblatt says he started the piece after a 1985 trip to the tomb of Chin Qui in China, which is guarded by a stone army of sculpted warriors.

In another of his "audience" pieces, called "My Balcony," about 80 sculpted patrons sit in a theater, in ascending rows. Rosenblatt's people are caricatures that attract observers like a video screen. Many a meeting-goer in Chapman's second floor conference room finds himself gazing at the group staring down from the "Balcony."

Stand at a distance from any of Rosenblatt's people and you will be able to see intricate details of their faces and clothing - details that aren't as evident close up. It's a technique he calls "Gestalt," a melding of nonspecific elements into a recognizable whole.

Sometimes his creations are more realistic, but always re-cast in color and whimsy. His cow sculptures, for example, sport cobalt blue spots. "I like to look at clouds," he muses. "They remind me of the spots on cows. So I made my spots in blue." His renderings of objects such as trees are multicolored. ("It looks like a feeling," he offers.)

"The Alley Between Kenwood and Hartford" is dominated by a tree of enormous proportions. ("Not there any more," he adds. "Where are all the trees? I've outlived them!")

An affable, understated man, Rosenblatt describes himself as lucky - lucky to have been able to do for the last 45 years what others hope to be able to do in their retirement.

"You get into it (an occupation) to make a living. But as you go along, it could turn out to be much more," he says of his career in academia. Rosenblatt wanted to be an artist; he didn't realize how much he would enjoy being a teacher. "The interaction with students is nice. Eighteen to 21 is when you really begin to wake up and know who you are. I like the sense of humor they (students) have and their different opinions. They aren't afraid to be wrong."

In the classroom, Rosenblatt favors methods of self-discovery over academic mechanics, says Samerjan. He asks his students to experiment with space and perception - "an extraordinary adventure for the mind."

"His style ennobles the university," says Samerjan. "I think it's probably imbedded in his philosophy to encourage play, in the sense that play is a goad to invention."

Rosenblatt believes art should be touched and seen from all sides, not pushed close to a wall or into a corner. "It takes away the life force of your imagination," he says. "You can't do that to people."

Originally from New Haven, Conn., and educated at Yale, Rosenblatt studied under German expressionist Josef Albers. He came to UWM in 1966 and his work has frequently appeared in Milwaukee and around the nation.

Once, his sculpture unwittingly played a hand in the preservation of a historic building in Toledo. For his art to have such a public impact is satisfying to him.

Rosenblatt is drawn to projects with connections and they are executed with heart.

In 1994, he visited eight schools to demonstrate to the faculty and students how a work of art is created. During his visits, he created sculptures using students as models. These student/artist encounters were part of a three-year collaborative project sponsored by the Wisconsin Arts Board, the UWM Graduate School, and five area public school districts.

More recently, he and his cousin visited a city in Israel where Jews and Arabs coexist peacefully. There, Rosenblatt taught art to children of both ethnic backgrounds.

Even at home, art is a shared, family experience for the Rosenblatts. Adolph's wife, Suzanne, and the couple's daughter, Sarah, are both poets who draw; their son, Eli, also paints when he isn't running his Third Ward store; and their second son, Josh, lives in New York and paints on the side.