Todd Schorr
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
artist and one of the most prominent members of the "Lowbrow
Lowbrow (art movement)
Lowbrow, or lowbrow art, describes an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970s. Lowbrow is a widespread populist art movement with origins in the underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, and other subcultures. It is also...
" art movement or pop surrealism. Combining a cartoon influenced visual vocabulary with a highly polished technical ability, based on the exacting painting methods of the Old Masters, Schorr weaves intricate narratives that are often biting yet humorous in their commentary on the human condition.
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Northeastern and Middle Atlantic regions of the United States. , its population was 8,791,894. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York, on the southeast and south by the Atlantic Ocean, on the west by Pennsylvania and on the southwest by Delaware...
, Schorr showed a compulsion for drawing at an early age and was enrolled in Saturday morning art classes by the age of five. Deeply affected by fantasy movies such as the 1933 classic King Kong
King Kong
King Kong is a fictional character, a giant movie monster resembling a gorilla, that has appeared in several movies since 1933. These include the groundbreaking 1933 movie, the film remakes of 1976 and 2005, as well as various sequels of the first two films...
and the early animated cartoons of Walt Disney and Max Fleischer
Max Fleischer
Max Fleischer was an American animator. He was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios...
, their influence along with comic books such as Mad
Mad (magazine)
Mad is an American humor magazine founded by editor Harvey Kurtzman and publisher William Gaines in 1952. Launched as a comic book before it became a magazine, it was widely imitated and influential, impacting not only satirical media but the entire cultural landscape of the 20th century.The last...
would have a lasting effect on Schorr’s developing visual vocabulary.
While visiting the Uffizi gallery in Italy on a trip to Europe in the summer of 1970, Schorr began to formulate his idea of combining his love of cartoons with the techniques of the old masters.
In 1972 he entered the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) wanting to be a painter but was advised to pursue illustration. Schorr started professional illustration work while still in college, and soon after graduating in 1976, he moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
where he produced work for projects including album covers for AC/DC
AC/DC
AC/DC are an Australian rock band, formed in 1973 by brothers Malcolm and Angus Young. Commonly classified as hard rock, they are considered pioneers of heavy metal, though they themselves have always classified their music as simply "rock and roll"...
, movie posters for George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
and Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is widely acclaimed as one of Hollywood's most innovative and influential film directors...
, and covers for Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine that now reside in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC.
By 1985 Schorr began making a concentrated effort to break away from illustration and focus on fine art painting. He was invited to show work in the 1986 landmark exhibition American Pop Culture Images Today at the Laforet Museum in Tokyo, Japan, along with notable artists Robert Williams
Robert Williams (artist)
Robert Williams is an American painter, cartoonist, and founder of Juxtapoz Art & Culture Magazine.Williams was part of the Zap Collective, along with other underground cartoonists such as Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton...
, Suzanne Williams, Neon Park, Bob Zoell, Georganne Deen, Mark Mothersbaugh, Gary Panter, and his wife Kathy Staico Schorr, which in large part galvanized the “Lowbrow
Lowbrow (art movement)
Lowbrow, or lowbrow art, describes an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970s. Lowbrow is a widespread populist art movement with origins in the underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, and other subcultures. It is also...
” and Pop Surrealism movements. Schorr continued to exhibit in group shows but by the time of his wildly successful first solo show in 1992 at the Tamara Bane Gallery in Los Angeles he had severed all ties to illustration. Schorr and his wife relocated to Los Angeles in 1999. The so-called “Lowbrow” art movement that he and his contemporaries helped form almost 25 years ago is now a global phenomenon.
In 2008 Schorr’s work was shown at the Laguna Art Museum
Laguna Art Museum
The Laguna Art Museum is a museum located in Laguna Beach, California on Pacific Coast Highway.An exhibition titled ...
as part of In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor. His work has also been exhibited in three career retrospectives to date: Secret Mystic Rites 2001, Art and Culture Center, Hollywood
Art and Culture Center of Hollywood
The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood is an arts organization located in Hollywood, Florida, USA, at 1650 Harrison Street. The Center is one of only six Major Cultural Institutions in Broward County out of more than 550 cultural non-profits. The Center presents contemporary visual and performing...
, Florida, American Surreal, 2009, San Jose Museum of Art
San Jose Museum of Art
The San Jose Museum of Art is an art museum in Downtown San Jose, California, USA. Founded in 1969, the museum hosts a large permanent collection emphasizing West Coast artists of the 20th- and 21st-century. It is located next to the Circle of Palms Plaza and Plaza de César Chávez...
, San Jose, CA and Designed for Extinction, 2010, Otis Ben Maltz Gallery
Ben Maltz Gallery
The Ben Maltz Gallery at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles is a professional art space that presents group and solo exhibitions in a variety of media. The Gallery’s main focus is showcasing contemporary art that pushes the boundaries of form and subject matter in the context of national...
, Los Angeles, CA.
Schorr’s work has been featured in many books and periodicals on the arts including Juxtapoz as well as the documentary film The Treasures of Long Gone John. Three monographs on his work, Secret Mystic Rites (1998), Dreamland (2004), and American Surreal have been published by Last Gasp
Last Gasp
Last Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...
.
Clash of Holidays Controversy in Florida
Clash of Holidays caused a scandal when it was exhibited in 2002, when South Florida civil leaders accused Schorr of blasphemy and others raising this as an issue over artistic freedom.A retrospective for Schorr entitled, Secret Mystic Rites: Todd Schorr Retrospective, was organized by the Art and Culture Center of Hollywood
Art and Culture Center of Hollywood
The Art and Culture Center of Hollywood is an arts organization located in Hollywood, Florida, USA, at 1650 Harrison Street. The Center is one of only six Major Cultural Institutions in Broward County out of more than 550 cultural non-profits. The Center presents contemporary visual and performing...
, Florida, on December 14, 2001 - February 17, 2002. A huge controversy immediately ensued due to the museum's invition for the exhibition which depicted Shorr's Clash of Holidays painting. The "museum managers mailed out about 4000 post cards showing Clash of the Holidays. The outrage started there. Clash of the Holidays depicts...Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny locked in mortal combat. Santa's wielding an ax. The rabbit has a knife. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Baby Jesus, who's munching on an ear from a chocolate rabbit, stand by."
"It was just a joke, really, like lot of my paintings that poke fun at things, comments Schorr, who completed the piece in 2000, then sold it to Courteney Cox Arquette of Friends
Friends
Friends is an American sitcom created by David Crane and Marta Kauffman, which aired on NBC from September 22, 1994 to May 6, 2004. The series revolves around a group of friends in Manhattan. The series was produced by Bright/Kauffman/Crane Productions, in association with Warner Bros. Television...
television show fame." Initially, "leaders of Art and Culture Center of Hollywood...had decided to take down the painting that had drawn nasty phone calls, e-mails, and criticism from the City Commission." The controversy died down after meetings between local, state, and museum officials concerning artist's rights, free speech and censorship.
The Treasures of Long Gone John
In 2006, a feature-length documentary titled The Treasures of Long Gone John, was released. The film is described as "A chronicle of the eccentric art and musical obsessions of indie record producer and self-described 'anti-mogul,' Long Gone JohnLong Gone John
Long Gone John is an American entrepreneur who is best known for his record label Sympathy for the Record Industry and his vinyl toy company Necessaries Toy Foundation. He lived in Long Beach, California for 30 years, but relocated to Olympia, Washington in 2007.-History:Long Gone John was born...
". The film features Schorr, Long Gone John and other Lowbrow
Lowbrow (art movement)
Lowbrow, or lowbrow art, describes an underground visual art movement that arose in the Los Angeles, California, area in the late 1970s. Lowbrow is a widespread populist art movement with origins in the underground comix world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, and other subcultures. It is also...
artists as it chronicles the progress of the commissioned painting A Pirate's Treasure Dream using time-lapse photography.
American Surreal
Schorr was given a career retrospective entitled American Surreal at the San Jose Museum of ArtSan Jose Museum of Art
The San Jose Museum of Art is an art museum in Downtown San Jose, California, USA. Founded in 1969, the museum hosts a large permanent collection emphasizing West Coast artists of the 20th- and 21st-century. It is located next to the Circle of Palms Plaza and Plaza de César Chávez...
in San Jose, CA, from June 20-September 16, 2009. The exhibit covered the entirety of the museum's first-floor exhibit space and showcased Todd's work from the mid-1980s through to his two most recent paintings, The World We Live In and When Fairy Tales Collide, which were finished in early 2009. The retrospective was accompanied by a third book of Schorr's work, also entitled American Surreal, published by Last Gasp
Last Gasp
Last Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...
.
Selected Artworks
- 2009 The World We Live In (acrylic on canvas, 84" x 38")
- 2008 Ape Worship (acrylic on canvas, 96" x 120")
- 2006 A Pirate’s Treasure Dream (acrylic on canvas, 72" x 96")
- 2002 Into the Valley of Finks and Weirdos (acrylic on canvas, 60" x 84")
- 2000 The Spectre of Cartoon Appeal (acrylic on canvas, 60" x 84")
- 2000 The Spectre of Monster Appeal (acrylic on canvas, 60" x 84")
Exhibitions
- 1986 American Pop Culture Images Today, LaForet Museum, Tokyo, Japan
- 1988 Sideshow, Tamara Bane Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 1988 Summer Solution, Psychedelic Solution, New York, NY
- 1992 Todd Schorr: New Paintings, Tamara Bane Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 1993 Graf/X, Bess Cutler Gallery, New York, NY
- 1994 Todd Schorr: New Works, Tamara Bane Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 1997 Recent Works, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 1998 Plundered Obsessions, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2000 Spectre of Influence, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2002 Secret Mystic Rites: Todd Schorr Retrospective, Art and Culture Center of Hollywood, Hollywood, FL
- 2003 An Alien in the Land of Make Believe, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2005 The Golden Age of Hypocrisy, Jonathan LeVine Gallery, New York, NY
- 2006 Suggested Reality, Mondo Bizzarro Gallery, Rome, Italy
- 2009 The World We Live In, Merry Karnowsky Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
- 2009 American Surreal (retrospective), San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA
- 2010 Art From the New World, Bristol City Museum & Art GalleryBristol City Museum and Art GalleryThe Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery is a large museum and art gallery in Bristol, England. It is run by the city council with no entrance fee. It holds designated museum status, granted by the national government to protect outstanding museums...
, Bristol, England - 2010 Designed for Extinction (retrospective), Otis Ben Maltz Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Publications
- American Surreal, Last GaspLast GaspLast Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...
, (2009). - Dreamland, Last GaspLast GaspLast Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...
, (2004). - Secret Mystic Rites, Last GaspLast GaspLast Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...
, (1998).
Selected articles
- Dangerous Ink Magazine, August 2007.
- Nude Magazine, May 2007.
- Juxtapoz Magazine, May 2006.
- Xyrurah Magazine, 2006.
- Wow Magazine, December 2005.
- Juxtapoz Magazine, September 2005.
- Juxtapoz Magazine, January 2004.
- Score Magazine, January 2003.