Art Green
Encyclopedia
Arthur Green is an American professor and painter
. Green was a member of the Chicago
artistic group, The Hairy Who in the 1960s, a member of the University of Waterloo’s
faculty for over 30 years and has been an influential painter for over 40 years.
. His father was a civil engineer who designed bridges. His mother crafted quilts and grew flowers.
He started off at the Art Institute of Chicago
studying industrial design, but switched to painting and drawing. In 1965, he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts
.
at a series of shows at Chicago’s Hyde Park Art Center
. The strange name reflected the trend in monikers for rock groups of the time. The other members of the group were James Falconer
, Gladys Nilsson
, Jim Nutt
, Suellen Rocca
, and Karl Wirsum
. Their work was known for its coarseness and vulgarity. It stood in contrast to the sleek and urban work by Manhattan
artists at the time, namely Andy Warhol
and James Rosenquist
.
His day job between 1966 and 1967 was employment with Chicago Public Schools. He taught seventh grade art. Between 1967 and 1968 he worked at Chicago City College
as an Instructor. Green taught basic design, interior design, and art history. The following year he moved to Kendall College of Art and Design
, Evanston, Illinois
to assume be Chair of the Fine Arts Department. There he taught studio and art history courses.
In 1969, Green married Natalie (also a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago) and moved to Canada to teach painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University
as an Assistant Professor.
In 1975, he received a Canada Council
bursary, which enabled him to teach painting and drawing at the University of British Columbia
.
In 1976, he moved again. This time to Stratford, Ontario
to teach at the University of Waterloo
. While at UW, he served two terms as Chair of the Fine Arts Department; 1988–1991 and 2000-2002.
In 2005, the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery hosted Heavy Weather: Art Green Retrospective in collaboration with the University of Waterloo Art Gallery. This exhibition brought together 50 of Green’s pieces, loaned from the artist and several private and public collectors in the United States and Canada, as a comprehensive survey of his 40 year career. Gary Michael Dault created a soft cover book with the same Heavy Weather title. The book contains photographs of the 50 pieces, commentary, and resource images which had inspired Green.
In 2006, the University of Waterloo gave him emeritus
status.
Green is married with two children, Catherine and Nicholas. As of 2006, Green lived with his wife in Stratford, Ontario.
and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
), Chicago blues music, University of Waterloo geometry.
In all of his works, Green has tried to avoid using too much of the color green. He has stated it is to "avoid the inevitable puns."
In the introduction to Heavy Weather, Green writes in the early days, “I aspired to make paintings that were awkward and monstrous, boring and familiar.”
In the mid-1980s, Green was interested in the Necker Cube
. He wrote, “I was intrigued by the possibilities of simultaneously representing all sides of a rotating cube. I incorporated tiling patterns of unfolded cubes along with the hypercube in my work.”
Of his more recent work, Green wrote, “I have been trying to make layered paintings that take a long time to “see”. I want to encourage the viewer to be conscious of the (usually unconscious) process of the interpretation and construction of images in the mind.”
, Ottawa, ON; The Art Institute of Chicago
, IL; Museum Moderner Kunst
, Vienna, Austria; The Museum of Contemporary Art
, Chicago, IL; The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
, Philadelphia, PA; The New Orleans Museum of Art
, New Orleans, LA; The National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian Institution), Washington, DC; The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art
, University of Chicago
, Chicago, IL; Yale University Art Gallery
, New Haven, CT; Northwestern University
, Chicago, IL; Dalhousie University Art Gallery, Halifax, NS; The Province of British Columbia
; The Canada Council Art Bank
, Ottawa, ON; The Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery and The University of Waterloo Art Gallery.
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
. Green was a member of the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
artistic group, The Hairy Who in the 1960s, a member of the University of Waterloo’s
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
faculty for over 30 years and has been an influential painter for over 40 years.
Early life
Green grew up in IndianaIndiana
Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...
. His father was a civil engineer who designed bridges. His mother crafted quilts and grew flowers.
He started off at the Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
studying industrial design, but switched to painting and drawing. In 1965, he earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
.
Career
In 1966, Green formed part of a Chicago-based, six person group that would exhibit their works together under the name The Hairy WhoChicago Imagists
The Chicago Imagists is the name of a group of representational artists associated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago who exhibited at the Hyde Park Art Center in the late 1960s. Their work was known for grotesquerie, surrealism and complete uninvolvement with New York art world trends...
at a series of shows at Chicago’s Hyde Park Art Center
Hyde Park Art Center
The Hyde Park Art Center is a visual arts organization and the oldest alternative exhibition space in the city of Chicago. Since 2006, HPAC has been located just north of Hyde Park Boulevard, at 5020 S.Cornell Avenue, in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois.-Beginnings:The Hyde Park Art...
. The strange name reflected the trend in monikers for rock groups of the time. The other members of the group were James Falconer
James Falconer
James Falconer was a Scottish solicitor and Liberal Party politician.-Family and education:Falconer was born in Carmyllie, Forfarshire, the son of Donald Falconer. He was educated at Arbroath High School and Edinburgh University where he obtained his MA degree. He married Ada Kennedy. ...
, Gladys Nilsson
Gladys Nilsson
Gladys M. Nilsson is an American artist, one of the original Chicago Imagists, a group in the 1960s and 1970s who turned to representational art...
, Jim Nutt
Jim Nutt
James T "Jim" Nutt is an American artist who was a founding member of the Chicago surrealist art movement known as the Chicago Imagists, or the Hairy Who...
, Suellen Rocca
Suellen Rocca
Suellen Rocca is a Chicago artist, one of the original Chicago Imagists, a group in the 1960s and 1970s who turned to representational art. She exhibited with them at the Hyde Park Art Center from 1966 through 1969....
, and Karl Wirsum
Karl Wirsum
Karl Wirsum is an American artist. A member of the notorious Chicago artistic group The Hairy Who, he helped set the foundation for Chicago's art scene in the 1970s. Wirsum is primarily a painter, though he has worked with prints, sculpture and even digital art.He received a B.F.A...
. Their work was known for its coarseness and vulgarity. It stood in contrast to the sleek and urban work by Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
artists at the time, namely Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
and James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist is an American artist and one of the protagonists in the pop-art movement.-Background and education:...
.
His day job between 1966 and 1967 was employment with Chicago Public Schools. He taught seventh grade art. Between 1967 and 1968 he worked at Chicago City College
City Colleges of Chicago
The City Colleges of Chicago is a system of seven community colleges which provide learning opportunities for Chicago residents at the schools or online, and also members of the US military through the Navy Campus to enhance their knowledge and skills. Student enrollment was 115,000 in 2007...
as an Instructor. Green taught basic design, interior design, and art history. The following year he moved to Kendall College of Art and Design
Kendall College of Art and Design
Kendall College of Art and Design, of Ferris State University, is a college of the visual arts in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, United States...
, Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
to assume be Chair of the Fine Arts Department. There he taught studio and art history courses.
In 1969, Green married Natalie (also a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago) and moved to Canada to teach painting at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University
Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University
NSCAD University also known as the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, is a post-secondary art school located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada....
as an Assistant Professor.
In 1975, he received a Canada Council
Canada Council
The Canada Council for the Arts, commonly called the Canada Council, is a Crown Corporation established in 1957 to act as an arts council of the government of Canada, created to foster and promote the study and enjoyment of, and the production of works in, the arts. It funds Canadian artists and...
bursary, which enabled him to teach painting and drawing at the University of British Columbia
University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia is a public research university. UBC’s two main campuses are situated in Vancouver and in Kelowna in the Okanagan Valley...
.
In 1976, he moved again. This time to Stratford, Ontario
Stratford, Ontario
Stratford is a city on the Avon River in Perth County in southwestern Ontario, Canada with a population of 32,000.When the area was first settled by Europeans in 1832, the townsite and the river were named after Stratford-upon-Avon, England. It is the seat of Perth County. Stratford was...
to teach at the University of Waterloo
University of Waterloo
The University of Waterloo is a comprehensive public university in the city of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. The school was founded in 1957 by Drs. Gerry Hagey and Ira G. Needles, and has since grown to an institution of more than 30,000 students, faculty, and staff...
. While at UW, he served two terms as Chair of the Fine Arts Department; 1988–1991 and 2000-2002.
In 2005, the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery hosted Heavy Weather: Art Green Retrospective in collaboration with the University of Waterloo Art Gallery. This exhibition brought together 50 of Green’s pieces, loaned from the artist and several private and public collectors in the United States and Canada, as a comprehensive survey of his 40 year career. Gary Michael Dault created a soft cover book with the same Heavy Weather title. The book contains photographs of the 50 pieces, commentary, and resource images which had inspired Green.
In 2006, the University of Waterloo gave him emeritus
Emeritus
Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...
status.
Green is married with two children, Catherine and Nicholas. As of 2006, Green lived with his wife in Stratford, Ontario.
Paintings
Green is known for his layered paintings. The inspiration for his work has come from his environment. For example, his father’s civil engineering drawings, Chicago architecture (by Louis SullivanLouis Sullivan
Louis Henri Sullivan was an American architect, and has been called the "father of skyscrapers" and "father of modernism" He is considered by many as the creator of the modern skyscraper, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, was a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright, and an...
and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was a German architect. He is commonly referred to and addressed as Mies, his surname....
), Chicago blues music, University of Waterloo geometry.
In all of his works, Green has tried to avoid using too much of the color green. He has stated it is to "avoid the inevitable puns."
In the introduction to Heavy Weather, Green writes in the early days, “I aspired to make paintings that were awkward and monstrous, boring and familiar.”
In the mid-1980s, Green was interested in the Necker Cube
Necker cube
The Necker Cube is an optical illusion first published as a rhomboid in 1832 by Swiss crystallographer Louis Albert Necker.-Ambiguity:The Necker Cube is an ambiguous line drawing....
. He wrote, “I was intrigued by the possibilities of simultaneously representing all sides of a rotating cube. I incorporated tiling patterns of unfolded cubes along with the hypercube in my work.”
Of his more recent work, Green wrote, “I have been trying to make layered paintings that take a long time to “see”. I want to encourage the viewer to be conscious of the (usually unconscious) process of the interpretation and construction of images in the mind.”
Noteworthy pieces
- Absolute Purity, 1967, Tastee-FreezTastee-FreezTastee-Freez is a Newport Beach, California-based franchised chain of fast-food restaurants with stores in 22 of the United States, with most of its stores located in Virginia, Illinois and Maryland. Currently there are fewer than 100 freestanding stores in the United States and Panama. It was...
e series - Immoderate Abstention, 1969, Fire and scissors
- Saturated Fat, 1971, Tastee-Freeze series
- Blank Slate, 1978, oil on canvas. First painting of an extended series that involve images of mirrors.
- Risky Business, 1980, a fire-and-fingernail totem with a layered and shaped canvasShaped canvasShaped canvases are paintings that depart from the normal flat, rectangular configuration. Canvases may be shaped by altering their outline, while retaining their flatness. An ancient, traditional example is the tondo, a painting on a round canvas: Raphael, as well as some other Renaissance...
es - Persons Unknown, 1985, layered and shaped canvases
- Double Crosser, 1991, imagery is secured, wired, lashed, tied-off, taped, and fastened with screws
- Circular Argument, 1994, layered and shaped canvases
Collections
Green’s paintings are in many public and private collections including those of The National Gallery of CanadaNational Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada , located in the capital city Ottawa, Ontario, is one of Canada's premier art galleries.The Gallery is now housed in a glass and granite building on Sussex Drive with a notable view of the Canadian Parliament buildings on Parliament Hill. The acclaimed structure was...
, Ottawa, ON; The Art Institute of Chicago
Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is one of America's largest accredited independent schools of art and design, located in the Loop in Chicago, Illinois. It is associated with the museum of the same name, and "The Art Institute of Chicago" or "Chicago Art Institute" often refers to either...
, IL; Museum Moderner Kunst
Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome...
, Vienna, Austria; The Museum of Contemporary Art
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a contemporary art museum near Water Tower Place in downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The museum, which was established in 1967, is one of the world's largest contemporary art venues...
, Chicago, IL; The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts is a museum and art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1805 and is the oldest art museum and school in the United States. The academy's museum is internationally known for its collections of 19th and 20th century American paintings,...
, Philadelphia, PA; The New Orleans Museum of Art
New Orleans Museum of Art
The New Orleans Museum of Art is the oldest fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans. It is situated within City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, and near the terminus of the "Canal Street - City Park" streetcar line...
, New Orleans, LA; The National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian Institution), Washington, DC; The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art
Smart Museum of Art
The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art is an art museum located on the campus of the University of Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The permanent collection of over 10,000 objects includes works by Francisco Goya, Frank Lloyd Wright, Edgar Degas, Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Diego...
, University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, Chicago, IL; Yale University Art Gallery
Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the Gallery possesses especially renowned collections of early Italian painting,...
, New Haven, CT; Northwestern University
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, Chicago, IL; Dalhousie University Art Gallery, Halifax, NS; The Province of British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
; The Canada Council Art Bank
Art Bank
The Art Bank is a division of the Canada Council for the Arts that rents works of art to public and private sector offices.Established in the 1970s the Art Bank buys art from notable Canadian artists through a system of peer review juries. The Bank continues to expand its collection, buying 52...
, Ottawa, ON; The Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery and The University of Waterloo Art Gallery.
Exhibitions
The artist’s work has been the subject of over 140 exhibitions at such venues as The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, the San Francisco Art Institute, the Musée d'Art Contemporain in Montreal, the Vancouver Art Gallery, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Green's works were featured in Border Crossings magazine, issue #96 Strange Beauty.Honours
- 1991, awarded the Distinguished Teacher Award at the University of Waterloo
- 1999, elected to Membership of the Royal Canadian Academy of ArtsRoyal Canadian Academy of ArtsThe Royal Canadian Academy of Arts is a Canadian arts-related institution founded in 1880, under the patronage of the Governor General of Canada, Sir John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne. Canadian landscape painter Homer Watson was a member and president of the Academy...
- 2004, awarded the Waterloo Regional Arts Council Arts Award for Visual Art