Big Dog
And now for something completely different: A Monty Pythonesque exhibit is going “Splat!” at the Madison Public Library.
Which turns out to be a very good thing. It’s long past time for artist Bill Amundson to share his whimsical, satirical and comedic images in the capital city.
His color-pencil pieces are included with works by Maryland artist James Bellucci in American Drawings, a collaborative exhibit that runs through July 27 in the Central Library’s third-floor gallery.
Having built an impressive national career, in 2010 the Stoughton native returned from Colorado, where he was based for 35 years. In December, he opened a studio/gallery on Stoughton’s Main Street called AmundArt Hus.
Amundson graduated from UW-Madison with an art degree in 1975. He has had solo shows in Austin, Colorado Springs, New York City, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Los Angeles and Toronto and been featured in six exhibitions at the Denver Art Museum. His work is included in that facility’s permanent collection, as well as those of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center and the University of Colorado Art Museum.
And yet, other than the library, only a senior center has displayed his work here. “I’ve had a heck of a time getting anything exhibited in Madison,” he says. “The art world isn’t known for humor per se.”
Pointed and sarcastic, his comedic sensibility appears to combine the non-sequitur humor of S.J. Perelman with the pointed political analysis of Herbert “Herblock” Block, the Pulitzer-winning master who defined editorial cartooning for half of the 20th century.
“I have quite a lot of artistic training, but I tend to like artists who are idiot savants,” says Amundson. “But I can’t very well say I’m an outsider artist. I have an education.”
Included in his exhibited 38 drawings are many bloviating and blimp-like images of a certain U.S. president. Amundson’s “Scotty Pop” makes our governor’s off-kilter eyes and face look luscious and lickable, placed on a Popsicle stick. “High Priest” makes a Mount Rushmore of one Green Bay Packers fan.
It’s impossible to view Amundson’s art and not see principal inspiration from early Mad magazine cartoonist Basil Wolverton. For others, the graphic flair and flavor of director and animator Terry Gilliam may be more apparent.
Fans of Monty Python know Gilliam’s work well. One of the troupe’s founders, and its only American, he was seldom seen on camera. Yet his flights of animation fancy were critical to the TV series from its start on the BBC, in 1969.
“I wasn’t obsessed with Monty Python,” says Amundson, “but I was born at an age when Monty Python was around all the time. So the sensibility was certainly there.”
He claims greater influences, however, such as Robert Crumb and underground cartoonists of the same period, as well as punk rock, composer Randy Newman and the Madison college comedy paper that’s since become a behemoth.
“The Onion has certainly been a big influence over the years,” says Amundson.
Some of the featured images are less politically pointed. One portrays a pokey and beleaguered middle-aged man: a real-life Elmer Fudd. The quizzical model is the artist himself. “I couldn’t get anyone to pose for something like that,” says Amundson, laughing.
For more information on Amundson and his work, visit the artist’s “AmandArt Hus” Facebook page.
