College Humor to Italian Tesserae: Celebrating the Centennial of James S. Watrous

August 1 – September 30, 2008

Marking the centennial of James S. Watrous (1908-1999), the exhibit looks at the many contributions of this artist and art historian to the UW campus.  The exhibit was inspired by John Dobbertin, a collector of college humor magazines, and Lynne Watrous Eich, daughter of James Watrous.  During his student days in the early 1930s, “Jimmy Watrous” illustrated a number of covers and cartoons for the campus magazine called Octopus.  A few years later,he worked as a muralist for the government sponsored Public Works Art Project (PWAP) and frescoed the walls of the Paul Bunyan Room in the Memorial Union, creating striking images of that large lumberjack of folklore fame and Babe the Blue Ox.  As a doctoral candidate, Watrous studied with the noted German art historian Oskar Hagen, earning his Ph.D. in 1939, at which time he joined the Department of Art History until his retirement in 1976.   His interest in art flourished in the 1950s when he travelled to Italy to study mosaic techniques. Using small tesserae of colored Venetian glass, he created memorable mosaics for buildings on campus (Vilas Hall, Memorial Union, Ingraham Hall, and the Social Sciences Building).  His major publications include The Craft of Old-Master Drawings (1957), and A Century of American Printmaking, 1880-1980 (1984), both published by the University of Wisconsin Press. As chairman of the building committee, he played a key role in the planning and construction of the new Elvehjem Art Center, which opened in 1970.  The exhibit displays photographs, books and realia from the University Archives, the Kohler Art Library and the Watrous family.   The exhibit is mounted in conjunction with exhibits on college humor magazines at the Memorial Union and Department of Special Collections (Memorial Library) during August and September.

Curated by Lyn Korenic, director, Kohler Art Library, and David Null, director, University Archives.

Image:  cover by artist James Watrous