Tom Huck
Encyclopedia
Tom Huck is an American printmaker best known for his large scale satirical woodcuts. He lives and works in St. Louis, Missouri
where he runs his own press, Evil Prints. He is a regular contributor to BLAB! of Fantagraphics Books
. His work draws heavily upon the influence of Albrecht Dürer
, José Guadalupe Posada
, R. Crumb, and Honoré Daumier
.
and grew up in nearby Potosi
. He received a BFA in drawing from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1993 and an MFA in printmaking from Washington University in 1995. From 2000 to 2010 he instructed printmaking at Washington University before focusing completely on his own press, Evil Prints.
From 1995 to 2005, Huck created two woodcut folios: 2 Weeks in August: 14 Rural Absurdities and The Bloody Bucket. 2 Weeks in August: 14 Rural Absurdities, a thematically unified suite of 14 large woodcut prints, depicted 14 bizarre folk tales that allegedly occurred in Huck's hometown of Potosi, Missouri. The 2 Weeks suite was produced in three years from 1995 to 1998. His second body of work, The Bloody Bucket, was based on violent legends surrounding a bar of that name in or around his hometown of Potosi. "The Bloody Bucket" comprises 10 large scale woodcuts, executed between 1999 and 2005.
Huck is currently working on a 14 triptych cycle of woodcut prints entitled "Booger Stew". The first installment of the series, a triptych entitled "The Transformation of Brandy Baghead Pts. 1, 2, & 3" was completed in March 2009. An exhibition entitled "Tom Huck and the Rebellious Tradition of Printmaking" opened on August 28, 2009 at The Saint Louis Art Museum. Prints by Albrecht Durer, William Hogarth
, Jose Guadalupe Posada, and Max Beckmann
were featured alongside Huck's "The Transformation of Brandy Baghead Pts. 1, 2, & 3".
Huck's woodcut prints are included in numerous public and private collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art
, Spencer Museum of Art
, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Saint Louis Art Museum
, Milwaukee Art Museum
, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Fogg Art Museum
, and New York Public Library
. Huck is represented by David Krut Art Projects in New York, New York, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Mo. and Eli Ridgway Gallery in San Francisco, Ca. In September 2011 Huck was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation
grant.
'
album Phrenology
, and in 2009 designed the poster for the band Motörhead and their show at The Pageant in Saint Louis. Huck's other clients also include Pabst Blue Ribbon
and Art the Vote, where he designed a billboard ad during the 2008 presidential election.
Huck's work is also known for his delicate and intricate method of carving and use of cross-hatching in the print medium. It has been described as having "a real delicasy of touch" and "an extraordinary landscape of marks".
Huck is associated with a movement within contemporary American printmaking known as "Outlaw Printmaking",a group that includes Bill Fick
, Richard Mock
, Dennis Mcnett,Sue Coe
, Sean Star Wars, Michael Barnes, and Cannonball Press.
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
where he runs his own press, Evil Prints. He is a regular contributor to BLAB! of Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books
Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...
. His work draws heavily upon the influence of Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
, José Guadalupe Posada
José Guadalupe Posada
Jose Guadalupe Posada: was a Mexican cartoonist illustrator and artist whose work has influenced many Latin American artists and cartoonists because of its satirical acuteness and political engagement....
, R. Crumb, and Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier
Honoré Daumier was a French printmaker, caricaturist, painter, and sculptor, whose many works offer commentary on social and political life in France in the 19th century....
.
Biography
Tom Huck was born on December 9, 1971 in Farmington, MissouriFarmington, Missouri
Farmington is a city in St. Francois County located south of St. Louis in the Lead Belt region in Missouri in the United States. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the population was 16,240. It is the county seat of St. Francois County. The Farmington Micropolitan Statistical Area embraces St...
and grew up in nearby Potosi
Potosi, Missouri
Potosi is a city in Washington County, Missouri, United States. Potosi is about 10 miles north of Belgrade. The estimated population in July 2008 was 2,698. It was 2,662 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Washington County...
. He received a BFA in drawing from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale in 1993 and an MFA in printmaking from Washington University in 1995. From 2000 to 2010 he instructed printmaking at Washington University before focusing completely on his own press, Evil Prints.
Work
Huck is best known for creating large scale woodcuts acting as both satirical narratives and social criticism. Huck states in his artist statement: "My work deals with personal observations about the experiences of living in a small town in southeast Missouri. The often Strange and Humorous occurrences, places, and people in these towns offer a never-ending source of inspiration for my prints. I call this work 'rural satire'From 1995 to 2005, Huck created two woodcut folios: 2 Weeks in August: 14 Rural Absurdities and The Bloody Bucket. 2 Weeks in August: 14 Rural Absurdities, a thematically unified suite of 14 large woodcut prints, depicted 14 bizarre folk tales that allegedly occurred in Huck's hometown of Potosi, Missouri. The 2 Weeks suite was produced in three years from 1995 to 1998. His second body of work, The Bloody Bucket, was based on violent legends surrounding a bar of that name in or around his hometown of Potosi. "The Bloody Bucket" comprises 10 large scale woodcuts, executed between 1999 and 2005.
Huck is currently working on a 14 triptych cycle of woodcut prints entitled "Booger Stew". The first installment of the series, a triptych entitled "The Transformation of Brandy Baghead Pts. 1, 2, & 3" was completed in March 2009. An exhibition entitled "Tom Huck and the Rebellious Tradition of Printmaking" opened on August 28, 2009 at The Saint Louis Art Museum. Prints by Albrecht Durer, William Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
, Jose Guadalupe Posada, and Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann
Max Beckmann was a German painter, draftsman, printmaker, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the movement...
were featured alongside Huck's "The Transformation of Brandy Baghead Pts. 1, 2, & 3".
Huck's woodcut prints are included in numerous public and private collections, including the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, Spencer Museum of Art
Spencer Museum of Art
The Spencer Museum of Art, or SMA, is an art museum on the campus of University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas. While admission is free, donations are accepted. Also located inside the Spencer Museum of Art are the Kress Foundation Department of Art History, and the Murphy Library of Art &...
, Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Saint Louis Art Museum
Saint Louis Art Museum
The Saint Louis Art Museum is one of the principal U.S. art museums, visited by up to a half million people every year. Admission is free through a subsidy from the cultural tax district for St. Louis City and County.Located in Forest Park in St...
, Milwaukee Art Museum
Milwaukee Art Museum
The Milwaukee Art Museum is located on Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.Beginning around 1872, multiple organizations were founded in order to bring an art gallery to Milwaukee, as the city was still a growing port town with little or no facilities to hold major art exhibitions...
, Minneapolis Institute of Art, Fogg Art Museum
Fogg Art Museum
The Fogg Museum, opened to the public in 1896, is the oldest of Harvard University's art museums. The Fogg joins the Busch-Reisinger Museum and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum as part of the Harvard Art Museums....
, and New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
. Huck is represented by David Krut Art Projects in New York, New York, Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art in Kansas City, Mo. and Eli Ridgway Gallery in San Francisco, Ca. In September 2011 Huck was awarded a Pollock-Krasner Foundation
Pollock-Krasner Foundation
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation was established in 1985 for the purpose of providing financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. It was established at the bequest of Lee Krasner, who was an American abstract expressionist painter and the widow of fellow painter Jackson...
grant.
Commercial Work
Aside from creating woodcuts, Tom Huck has also worked with musicians and organizations by designing logos, posters, and apparel. In 2002 Huck designed the cover to The RootsThe Roots
The Roots is an American hip hop/neo soul band formed in 1987 by Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter and Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They are famed for beginning with a jazzy, eclectic approach to hip hop which still includes live instrumentals...
'
album Phrenology
Phrenology (album)
Phrenology is the fifth studio album by American hip hop band The Roots, released November 26, 2002, on Geffen Records and MCA Records. Recording sessions for the album took place during June 2000 to September 2002...
, and in 2009 designed the poster for the band Motörhead and their show at The Pageant in Saint Louis. Huck's other clients also include Pabst Blue Ribbon
Pabst Blue Ribbon
Pabst Blue Ribbon is a brand of beer sold by Pabst Brewing Company, originally established in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, but now based in Los Angeles. Pabst Blue Ribbon is contract-brewed in six different breweries around the U.S...
and Art the Vote, where he designed a billboard ad during the 2008 presidential election.
Style and Influences
Huck's work pushes the boundaries of technique and taste in his chosen medium, the woodcut. Huck draws his influences mainly from Northern Renaissance masters, such as Albrecht Dürer whom he cites as a 'print hero'. Other influences include José Guadalupe Posada, Honoré Daumier, and Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes.Huck's work is also known for his delicate and intricate method of carving and use of cross-hatching in the print medium. It has been described as having "a real delicasy of touch" and "an extraordinary landscape of marks".
Huck is associated with a movement within contemporary American printmaking known as "Outlaw Printmaking",a group that includes Bill Fick
Bill Fick
Bill Fick is a printmaker living and working in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He received his B.A. from Duke University and his M.F.A. from University of North Carolina-Greensboro...
, Richard Mock
Richard Mock
Richard Mock was a printmaker, painter, sculptor, and editorial cartoonist. Mock was best known for his linocut illustrations that appeared on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times from 1980 through 1996....
, Dennis Mcnett,Sue Coe
Sue Coe
Sue Coe is an English artist and illustrator working primarily in drawing and printmaking, often in the form of illustrated books and comics. She grew up close to a slaughterhouse and developed a passion to stop cruelty to animals. Coe studied at the Royal College of Art in London, lived in New...
, Sean Star Wars, Michael Barnes, and Cannonball Press.