The wacky Chicagoan has begun to look canonical. A pocket retrospective revisits rowdydow work from Nutt's days as a "Hairy Who" Surrealist, in the sixties, and then jumps to his recent fantasy portraits, in smooth paint or careful pencil, of oddly configured women. With aromatic color that extends to beautifully crafted frames, the pictures evoke the clenched intensity of icons. They convince a viewer that an exactly squashed nose or a twisted brow is a matter of some formal and meaningful, critical import. Call it geek neo-classicism.
May 20, 2010
