Draft:Rudy Rotter

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Rudy Rotter (1913–2001) was an American outsider and self-taught artist residing in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, a small midwestern industrial town located on the shore of Lake Michigan. Raised in Milwaukee, he moved to Manitowoc in the late 1940’s where he setup a dental practice, while at the same time being active as an artist. Upon retiring in 1987, he moved his artwork from his office basement into a large 100-year-old warehouse . As the warehouse filled with art over the next decade and a half, it was transformed into his self-designated art museum. Rudy created over 15,000 pieces of art over 45 years.

Early Life of the Artist

Rudy Rotter grew up on the south side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin in an Eastern European immigrant neighborhood. He was the youngest of six children, and one of two born in the United States. The family’s primary language at home was Yiddish, with the children quickly fitting into the American landscape of their day. The family, with peasant roots of peasant roots in Imperial Russia’s Pale of Settlement near Kiev, arrived at the turn of the century and moved into a Polish speaking neighborhood. Over time they built up seven small businesses before losing five in the Crash of 1929. Rudy and his brother Peter became all-city high school football stars; an anomaly and a special distinction for Jewish youth of their time. All the family’s children entered into the American mainstream with positive perspectives and ambitions molded by their youth spent within a close-knit hardworking loving immigrant family.

Self-taught Outsider Artist

Rotter, as a self-taught artist, worked outside of the norms and expectations of the traditional art community. Although generally aware of the history of art, he had no formal art training. Instead he relied upon his inner muse to provide the substance and style of his work. Commercial success was not a driver; rather he possessed an inner compulsion to create. His art was independent of outside demands and created in a locale distant from an appreciative audience, yet he yearned for attention to be paid toward his work, albeit he received little. Placing the Outsider label on this type of artist is important to enable acceptance of their unusual art product, which might otherwise be dismissed before getting a fair viewing.

Although Rotter lacked formal experience with art, he did have some exposure to it. While working his way through the University of Wisconsin, he would model for his sister’s art classes. A few years later, Rotter attended dental school and attended human anatomy classes which included dissection. This knowledge would be valuable decades later in his drawings and sculptures.

In the early 1950’s Rudy began exercised his creative impulses by becoming an inventor. He created the first sugarless chewing gum, a stay-on toothpaste cap dispenser, a medical sterilizer made from a pressure cooker, shoe polish on a roller, and more. Then he spent a year working on an unfulfilled quirky idea to moor a small Bahamian ocean liner in the Manitowoc harbor. In 1954 Rotter embarked on art making, a pursuit that would occupy all of his free time for the remainder of his life.

15,000 Works of Art and the Rudy Rotter Museum of Sculpture

Rudy Rotter created over 15,000 works of art over his last 45 year until his passing in 2001 at the age of 88. It’s been claimed that he was the most prolific artist in the state of Wisconsin and possibly the nation. His compulsive daily production eventually resulted in the self-designated Rudy Rotter Museum of Sculpture, which was housed in the 100-year-old dilapidated warehouse which was also his studio . One writer suggested that the densely packed warehouse-museum was an art environment unto itself. While that is true, it is important that the volume of production not distract from the quality of Rotter's individual works.

Unfortunately, after Rudy’s passing and a partial roof collapse a few years later, the Museum was disassembled and moved to another location. In 2015 the artwork was returned to the original warehouse, however no longer in a presentable orderly state.

Variety of Styles – Consistency of Theme

From the night when he first chiseled a wood bust in his home basement at the age of 43, Rotter was on an impassioned and consuming journey. He began by making human figures in clay which he then cast in plaster. He went on to create bas reliefs sculpted from teak scraps provided by a local yacht builder , then to making small machetes of imagined grand monuments from old foundry patterns and scrap wood. His eclectic style was born out of his constant drive to create and experiment. Each acquisition of scavenged and donated materials suggested new pathways and creative possibilities.

Beside the more traditional art materials, Rotter experimented with esoteric supplies like his sister's old mink coat, leather, shiny trophy factory scrap, discarded wallpaper samples, scavenged wood, thrift shop finds, and more, including drawing images with magic markers on photographs. During all of his phases of varied production, he continued to draw incessantly.

The breadth of this artist’s variety of styles and use of these unique materials has given some the impression that there was little consistency across his large body of work. However, this is not the case. Although Rudy expressed himself intuitively without preconceived notions of what he would produce, his work had a thematic consistency. Rotter had a cast of “characters” that are repeated in varied styles, formats, and refinement, each appearing often in his artwork spanning the life of the artist.

Rotter had strong views on the process and philosophy of art making. To him the joy was in the process of creating the art. He viewed this as more important than the resulting finished objects. Since the act of making art was paramount, he had no time nor motivation to self-critique his completed work. When one piece was done, it was set aside and work quickly began on the next. When asked what his favorite piece was, his answer would be “The one I’m working on now.” This mode of continuous obsessive production is seen among many outsider artists.

Thus, over the years none of his work was discarded and the number of pieces continued to grow and fill the warehouse. The fortunate result of this large accumulation was the self-designated “Rudy Rotter Museum of Sculpture”; the scale and content of which fascinated and awed those who visited.

Humanism was at the core of the art

The basis of Rudy Rotter’s art is a humanism augmented by dreamlike spiritual expression. The intent of his work comes from the personal values acquired in his youth. He distilled these into unique and expressive images rendered with creative and imaginative techniques, often on non-traditional materials. Rotter’s consistent core theme is embodied in a tale he fashioned based on memories of the values and vitality of his immigrant upbringing. It is a theme where his cast of characters represents the immediate nuclear family, and more broadly the family of man. With these image he iconized the feelings of interconnectedness and love he recalled from his youth.  

Rotter used archetypal human images, and later in life added “imaginary creatures” of his own devising. His heads and figures were generally rendered in a flat side-view or frontal-view. The figures relied on a limited number of lines or strokes, all quickly drawn. Thus, his work utilized both literal image and abstract compositions. Rotter’s pieces range from large mahogany bas reliefs based on the Old-Testament, to miniature grand architectural machetes made with scrap-wood, to dignified 6 foot tall standing chiseled wood figures, to painting and assemblage on plywood plaques, and finally to thousands of drawings done in Japanese oil crayon, and later with magic markers.

From Early to Late Period

His Early Period (195-1989) work includes sculptures and drawings of couples, families, or groupings of individuals, often entwined and physically interrelating. His figures are unclothed and in non-specific settings without reference to their time and place. Thus, they become timeless images expressing a universal humanity. His favored figures were man, woman and child, singularly or groups, all very basic and strongly rendered in line and color, and placed on their medium in sophisticated compositions. Each work of art is an interplay of literal subjects, boldly crafted materials, and abstract forms. The artistic merits are as important as the ideas and feelings expressed.

With advancing age Rotter’s strength declined. He began his Late Period (1990 – 2001) work at the point when he transitioned from carving hard materials and stone, to the use of light-weight supplies such as wallpaper samples, shiny metal trophy discards, as well as commercial tile samples and a variety of found objects. His spirit of experimentation seemed to grow over time, and his art became increasingly abstract and playful. This change to more flexible materials brought forth a greater freedom of expression that resulted in an expanded palette of characters and forms in his artwork. His last decade may have been his most innovative.

The gallerist Debra Brehmer of the Portrait Society Gallery of Milwaukee, WI, succinctly sums up the experience of entering Rudy’s warehouse after his passing:

“To enter the warehouse, even in its present state, is to come in contact with a relentlessly committed spirit. Rotter believed that there was magic in the act of making things. To tap into these free forces of boundless potentiality, a realm without laws or limits, was to share in the fullest condition of humanity. The act of creating something, whether it was from a huge panel of Mahogany or some cast off metal pieces from the local trophy factory, provided an avenue of access to a spiritually infused state. This is what unifies Rotter’s extraordinarily diverse body of work. For Rotter, it was clearly the act of making things that held the power, not necessarily the final “product” itself. Yet each piece acts a little like an icon or totem as it gently and often humorously emits material evidence of Rudy’s belief in creativity, hard-work and human intimacy. ‘Here,’ Rudy seems to be saying with each piece, ‘take this work of art and remember to value life.’”

The Current State of Rudy Rotter’s Artwork

While many pieces of Rotter’s art moved into the public realm during his lifetime, he did not achieve a sustainable reputation that would enable his art to continue being distributed after his passing. As of 2019, a large body of his work remains in the same space in which it was originally created.

With the collection’s survival at risk, in 2017 Rudy’s son, Randy, took on the task of refining the collection so as to highlight and preserve the most significant works. This continuing mission is to find pathways that will take this art out of the warehouse and into the world.

In 2019, Rotter’s work was displayed at the Outsider Art Fair, in New York. Various institutions have recently added his work to their permanent collections. These include the Kohler Foundation, INTUIT of Chicago, Museum of Wisconsin Art, Haggerty Museum of Art, University of Wisconsin Green Bay, Rahr West Art Museum, and the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.

References[edit]

1.     ^ Great Little Museums of the Midwest. Christine Des Garennes. p. 50

2.     ^http://rudyrotterart.com/documents/who%20was%20rudy.htm

3.     ^ "17,000 pieces of passion". archive.jsonline.com. Retrieved 2019-03-18.

4.     ^ Miracles of the Spirit: Folk, Art, and Stories from Wisconsin By Don Krug, Ann Parker. p. 12

5.     ^ Krug, Don; Parker, Ann (2005). Miracles of the Spirit: Folk, Art, and Stories from Wisconsin. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781578067534.

Bibliography[edit]

·       John Michael Kohler Arts Center (1996). Rudy Rotter: Mahogany To Mink – Perspectives Series

·       Rajer, Anton (1998). Rudy Rotter's Spirit-Driven Art: The Odyssey and Evolution of an Artistic Vision | slide deck (lo res). Fine Arts Conservation. ISBN 0-9664180-0-X

·       “Rudy Rotter in His Museum,” YouTube video, duration 00:05:58ss, post by “Randy Rotter,” 08/04/2016, created in 2000 by KCPT, https://youtu.be/HniYABKi4Ys

·       Des Garennes, Christine (2002). Great Little Museums of the Midwest: Rudy Rotter’s Museum of Sculpture. ISBN-13: 978-1931599085 p. 50-51

·       Taylor, Peggy (2003). The Uncertain Legacy of Rudy Rotter | html. The Outsider magazine, INTUIT magazine. p 17-21.

·       Koplitz, Steve. Rudy Rotter – Biography, Wisconsin Museum of Art

·       Turner, John and Klochko, Deborah (2004), Create and Be Recognized, Photography on the Edge. Intro by Roger Cardinal. ISBN 0-8118-4432-3 p 90-93

·       “Rudy Rotter’s 17,000 works of art”. YouTube video, duration 00:02:38ss, post by Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Mary Louis Schumacher), created 12-20-2016, https://youtu.be/HMFvcZOnnwY

·       Andrew Edlin Gallery (2003): Remembrance and Ritual: Jewish Folk Artists of Our Time, New York, NY

·       Fine, Gary Allan (2004), Everyday Genius - Self-taught Art and the Culture of Authenticity. Univ. of Chicago Press, ISBN-13: 978-0226249513 pp. 116, 119, 263

·       Krug, Don, Ann Parker, Roger Cardinal (2005). Miracle of the Spirit | html. ISBN 9781578067534. Univ. Press of Mississippi. p 53-61

·       Sellen, Betty-Carol (2016). Self Taught, Outsider, and Folk Art – 2016.  A Guide to American Artists, Locations and Resources. McFarland. ISBN-13: 978-0786475858

·       Rotter, Randy (2018). A Warehouse Full of Dreams. The Folk Art Messenger, Fall/Winter 2018. ISSN 1043-5026. p 8-11

External links[edit]

·       Web: http://rudyrotter.com

·       CV: http://rudyrotterart.com/documents/rudyrotterexhibitions.pdf

·       Kohler Foundation: http://www.kohlerfoundation.org/preservation/major-collections/rudy-rotter/

·       Essay: Portrait Society Gallery: Rudy Rotter

·       Article: The Outsider Complex Jewish Folk Artists Of Our Time, by Richard McBee – 2003

·       Article: Rudy Rotter - Biography, Museum of Wisconsin Art by Steve Koplitz

·       Article: Spiritual in the Material -- Inside Rudy’s Warehouse by David Luhrssen | Shepherd Express -- 2008

·       Article: UW-Manitowoc Gallery Features Rotter works – HTR Media – 2015

·      Essay: Who was Rudy Rotter, by Randy Rotter - 2018

·       Essay: Rudy Rotter’s Last Decade – Let the Joy Come In!, by Randy Rotter – 2018

·       Article: Folk Art Messenger: Rudy Rotter - A Warehouse Full of Dreams | txt only, by Randy Rotter, Folk Art Society of America - 2018

·       Essay: The Expertise of Rudy Rotter from Early to Late Period, by Randy Rotter – 2019