Curtis Otto: American Primitive

Artist Curtis Otto was born in 1923 in Eureka, California, and served in the U.S. Army during WWII as an engineer supply technician. He saw duty in Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and in the Pacific. He followed in his father’s footsteps to become a pharmacist, earning his degree from the University of New Mexico.

While at the university Otto took an elective art class and developed an intense interest in art. After working as a pharmacist in Eureka and Willow Creek for nearly two decades, he studied for a few months at the Art Students League in New York, where earlier Thomas Hart Benton had been a teacher and Jackson Pollock a student. In the ‘70s, Otto changed careers and became a full time painter.

As early as the late ‘50s, Otto started integrating stenciled words into his work. Although typography had appeared in fine art as early as the 1920s in the work of artists like Charles Demuth, it wasn’t common in the U.S. until Pop Art became an established style in the early ‘60s. Otto said, “It’s a different visual experience. Instead of leaving it to the viewer to contemplate, you’re completing the statement with the word.”

The inclusion of text is one of the signature aspects of an Otto oil. His son Jason said that his father’s earlier work was impressionistic, with smaller, lighter brushstrokes. He added that his father liked geometry; Otto used unusual perspectives and angled views, and sometimes Cubist-like fractured space.
Rick Skogsberg of Rochester, Vermont, said of one of Otto’s trapezoid paintings: “That's where the success is: two perspectives juxtaposed extremely abstractly.”

Of a seascape, Clyde Willis of Lake City, Florida, said, “It seems a conversation … a loud one, heating up as they lean into it, the sky aflame with dissension. Skogsberg added, “The brushwork in the mid-sky has great volume. The tree is fantastic, evoking the same power over the rocks as the sorcerer over the brooms in Disney’s Fantasia.”

Otto’s canvases include circular and trapezoid shapes in addition to traditional rectangles. He also liked to composite paintings into groups.

The art communities of two cities claim Otto as their own. Since the late ‘70s Otto lived alternately, two weeks at a time, in both Eureka and in Grants Pass, Oregon.

In the spring of 2016, the Grants Pass Museum of Art exhibited a retrospective of Otto’s work with 80 paintings, curated by Tommi Drake, a longtime friend and past chair of the art department at Rogue Community College.

It was a dazzling display of art, a cacophony of color and shapes, hung in Otto’s favorite way: salon style: wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling. Hyla Lipson, the museum’s executive director, said her first impression of the show was: “Wild color, mayhem, chaos … and in contrast, lovely and thoughtfully serene scenes.”

Otto’s style was unique. Mary Ann Bullard called it “American Primitive” with its simplification of lines, flattening of surfaces, and the use of wild, lush color, usually in large and loose brushstrokes. It’s related to the work of the early 1900s Fauvists Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, while the technique is reminiscent of the Expressionists. Otto loved the lush and viscous medium of oils and said, “The messy medium is best for my art.”

Otto didn’t paint on an easel. Instead, he painted standing up, with his canvas placed on the floor.

He liked to work from life, whether his subject was a bridge, a house, a still life, or a model. His depiction of the female form was sometimes controversial, with its exaggerated curves, volumes, and focus. In this, his figures are similar to the full-bodied figures of Robert Crumb, who created Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat, and the Keep On Truckin' series in the 1960s.

At its best, art provides a lens through which we can see the world differently. Otto’s work was consistently successful in revealing a unique vision touched with essential beauty, truth and humor.

One of the most original and prolific painters in the Pacific Northwest, Curtis Otto passed away at age 92 on November 7, 2015. His life’s work will be treasured for many years to come.

Many thanks to:
Jason and Jennette Otto, Adrienne Otto, DVM, Tommi Drake,
Tim and Mary Ann Bullard, Rick Skogsberg, Clyde Willis,
Hyla Lipson, Grants Pass Museum of Art, North Coast Journal,
Eureka Times-Standard
Soundtrack: version of "Footprints," written by Wayne Shorter, licensed by Pond5
Photography by Timothy Bullard and Randy Johnson
© 2016 by RandyBull Productions
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