Art and satire

James Rhem profiles printmaker and emeritus UW-Madison art professor Warrington Colescott in a feature marking a retrospective of the artist's work at the Elvehjem. "I'm not really a political artist," says Colescott, adding that the main thrust of his work is social satire. "The work explains my political thinking and social thinking," he explains. "My prints reflect a liberal point of view, but I'd be hard-pressed to describe what my politics are. It used to be I could describe myself as antifascist. When I was working on the newspaper at Berkeley in the 1940s and the Spanish Civil War was going on, it was clear what we were up against." Satire is more difficult now, he continues, "because everything is dominated by selling. The commercial life, the commercial importance, the flourishing of wealth, the narrowing of wealth and the lack of education, particularly cultural education - these are big problems in society today." Among other favorite Colescott targets: war, racism, hunting, gender conflict, history, faith and sex. "I think of it in terms of targets," he says. "A satirist needs targets." Colescott continues to reap laurels: In 2007, the Smithsonian Museum of American History purchases one of his paintings, and New York's National Academy Museum awards him the Andrew Carnegie Prize in Painting.