From Shane McAdams, Curator in Residence at Saint Kate:
The work of artist Leonard Beck (1917 – 1992) came to me through an equally creative and enigmatic Milwaukee punk rock scholar and art preservationist named Paul Finger. Unlike Mr. Finger, Beck was notably shy and often ridiculed as a youth for his heavily accented speech and unconventional appearance. Like many creative gay men and women in 40s and 50s America, Beck sought refuge in the more inclusive world of the arts. This included connecting with other creative refugees, such as the renowned Milwaukee artist Karl Priebe. Postcards between the two in this installation speak to the intimacy and creativity that founded their relationship. These artifacts also underscore the connective tissue that was expanding through in mid-century avant-garde culture, eventually fueling everything from psychedelia to punk to new wave.
Early signs of Leonard Beck’s talent earned the young artist a $100 scholarship to the Layton School of Art in 1935. The burgeoning force of German modernists such as George Grosz, Max Ernst, and Russian photographer Alexander Rodchenko inspired Beck to cultivate a synthesis of styles through the prism of his own wild eclecticism. Over time, an obsession with portraiture gave way to experiments in abstract geometric work, as well as exotic landscapes charged with color and populated by mysterious forms that appear simultaneously corporeal and intergalactic. Often flattened into the term “magical realism,” this exhibition explodes that term into countless individual spells and motivations.
An overtly private man, little of Beck’s life story outside these works remains. The story that can be gleaned from Finger’s collection of 5 decades of artistic output, accented by the ephemera–letters, napkin drawings, diary entries, letters–that you see here is astoundingly individual in a way that is unimaginable in today’s world of algorithms and social media. It seemed like a story as urgent as any I’ve seen, one that still creeps its way into my thoughts daily, and I hope it acts as a model for how to process and comment on the world at our feet.
