Malcolm Myers: The Don Quixote Series

In its commitment to showcase the work of Minnesota artists, the Weisman Art Museum presents Malcolm Myers: The Don Quixote Series. Myers was a faculty member for more than 50 years and established the printmaking program in the art department at the University of Minnesota. The Don Quixote series, featuring 10 paintings, is on view at the Weisman from August 11 through October 14, 2001.

Born on a farm in Lucerne, Missouri in 1917, Myers received his B. F. A. from the University of Wichita, and his master's degree from Iowa State University. Myers taught printmaking at Iowa for two years, until he was recruited to teach in the department of art at the University of Minnesota. He was instrumental in organizing the B. F. A. program and eventually a graduate program, and he served as the first chairman of the art department. He studied in Paris and Mexico under Guggenheim Fellowships, worked with renowned painters Mauricio Lasansky and William Hayter, and instructed James Rosenquist and Richard Haas. His work resides in the collections of many institutions, from the Smithsonian Institution to the Biblioteque Nationale.

The subjects of Myers's artwork are varied and diverse. He has used motifs of religion, boats, cowboys, even nursery rhymes, and has a penchant for all kinds of animals, who appear throughout his paintings and prints. He often makes numerous works on variations of the same subject, utilizing his three major media: intaglio, watercolor, and acrylic or oils. One example of this is his Don Quixote series, created from 1998 to 2000. "I have never read the book, Don Quixote," Myers explains. "I was just intrigued by the idea of some old guy charging at windmills."

The title character of Miguel Cervantes's 17th-century novel, Don Quixote, in his madness, sees the everyday as legendary. Myers portrays the hero seated on horses, attended by knights, accompanied by a masked friend, each painting working within the same motif but with different figures, colors, and patterns. The series includes 22 paintings, five watercolors, and five etchings. It was after he completed the works that a student, Marie Rosenstone, gave him a copy of the novel. But reading it hasn't inspired him to return to his depictions of the infamous knight. He's on to other paintings-- of jazz artists, abstractions, and two men and a dog.

Myers works in his southeast Minneapolis studio five days a week. "I used to be here every day," he says. "But now I garden on the weekends." And he continues to teach watercolor painting in evening extension classes offered by the University.

Malcolm Myers: The Don Quixote Series is presented with assistance from the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota.