
Untitled
<p>With Art Green, Jim Nutt, and Suellen Rocca, Karl Wirsum exhibited as a member of the Hairy Who. Although he is now noted for his elegantly realized comic imagery, he drew constantly from life as a student. This print was made from two plates—one a commercial plate used as a tonal image, and the second derived from drawings Wirsum made of birds at the Lincoln Park Zoo. The pattern of their fluttering wings foreshadows the artist’s mature use of pattern in paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Wirsum has taught at SAIC since the early 1970s and has had a long association with Ox-Bow.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1959
- Dimensions
- Image/plate: 30.7 × 38 cm (12 1/8 × 15 in.); Sheet: 36.5 × 43 cm (14 3/8 × 16 15/16 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- Karl Wirsum
Artist

Drawing
Karl Wirsum was an American painter and printmaker known for his exuberant, cartoonish figuration and bold graphic surfaces. Working primarily in acrylic and ink from the 1960s onward, his compositions featured distorted human faces and bodies rendered in acid colors and thick outlines, rooted in Chicago's postwar artistic traditions. His work merged commercial graphic design sensibilities with fine art ambition, creating a visual language that anticipated aspects of later Pop and Figurative movements.
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More by Karl Wirsum
Untitled
1990 · Colored crayon with graphite and collaged crayon and graphite elements on white wove paper
Back Teria One Oh! One
1981 · Acrylic on canvas
Apple-Polished Zombunny
1980 · Colored pencils and colored crayons on black wove paper
You Scratch My Back and I'll Scratch Yours
1980 · Acrylic on canvas
Hare Toddy Kong Tamari
1980 · Color offset lithograph on white wove paper
Green-Eared Zombunny
1980 · Colored pencils and colored crayons on black wove paper
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- Karl Wirsum
- Year
- 1959
- Dimensions
- Image/plate: 30.7 × 38 cm (12 1/8 × 15 in.); Sheet: 36.5 × 43 cm (14 3/8 × 16 15/16 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1959-037853
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified





