William Utermohlen

The first artworks that Utermohlen made were a series of self-portraits, which were created between 1955 to 1957.[9] From 1957 to 1959, Utermohlen also enrolled in the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford,[4] where he met R. B. Kitaj.[10] After Utermohlen left Ruskin, he returned to the U. S. and stayed there for three years.[11] In 1962, Utermohlen moved to London, and met art historian Patricia Redmond, whom he married in 1965.[3][lower-alpha 1] In 1969, Utermohlen's artwork was featured in an exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery.[13] In 1972, Utermohlen began teaching art at the Amherst College in Massachusetts,[14] where Patricia received her master's degree.[15] By 1975, Utermohlen had returned to London.[16] In 1992, he gained British nationality.[11]

Utermohlen's works have been classified as figurative by The Times, NBC and Emmanuelle Tulle.[17] For a short while in the late 1970s, Utermohlen adopted the technique of printing a photograph onto a canvas and painting directly over the photograph, which was a response to the photorealist movement. An example of this technique can be seen in a self-portrait from 1977 titled "Self-Portrait (Split)". Utermohlen would use this technique to make two portraits of his wife.[18]

Most of the paintings that Utermohlen made throughout his career have been classified into six cycles: the Mythological series of 1962–1963, the Cantos cycle (or the Dante cycle) of 1964–1966, the Mummers Cycle of 1969–1970, the War series of 1972–1973; Nudes series of 1973–1974,[lower-alpha 3] and the Conversation pieces of 1989–1991. The Mythological series consists of relatively dim water scenes.[20] The Dante cycle was inspired by Dante's Inferno, but the art style was also influenced by 1960s movements including pop art.[21] The War series were artworks that referenced the Vietnam War.[22] A 1973 painting in the Nudes series titled "Five Figures", was influenced by events that happened at Amherst College.[19]

Both the Mummers Cycle and the Conversation pieces were based on early memories. The Mummers Cycle, created by Utermohlen between 1968 to 1970, is based on the Mummers Parade of Philadelphia,[23] but in a letter from November 1970, Utermohlen stated that the Mummers Cycle was also created as a "vehicle for expressing my anxiety".[24] His wife, Patricia states that the Conversation pieces were "an empathetic vision of the lower classes, but also his own projected self-image".[25] The Conversation pieces have been described by Patrice Polini as Utermohlen trying to fix the events of his life before they fade away, with artwork titles such as W9 and Maida Vale referencing the district and neighborhood, respectively, that Utermohlen lived in at the time.[26]

For a short while in the early 1980s, Utermohlen's work had expanded to making murals in places as the Liberal Jewish Synagogue and the Royal Free Hospital.[27][28] The mural at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue was inspired by Italian painter Piero della Francesca.[29] Utermohlen had also been commissioned to paint portraits, which were created from the late 1960s to 1990.[30]

Snow (1990), which is part of Utermohlen's Conversation pieces. This painting was made before Utermohlen would start experiencing symptoms of memory loss.

Head I (2000), Utermohlen's last recognizable self-portrait. According to his wife Patricia, these paintings show his "efforts to explain his altered self, his fears and his sadness."[31]

During the creation of the Conversation pieces, Utermohlen started to experience the early symptoms of memory loss. Utermohlen's symptoms at the time included having issues tying a necktie, having problems remembering recent events, and forgetting the route to his apartment.[32] From 1993 to 1994, Utermohlen created a series of multiple lithographs, which depicted short stories written by the World War I poet Wilfred Owen.[26] Chris Boicos, Utermohlen's art dealer, said that the subject matter of the lithographs were a metaphor for the forthcoming Alzheimer's diagnosis a year later.[33] By the time Utermohlen had finished these lithographs, he would often forget to show up to the art classes that he would teach.[34]

In August 1995,[35] at the age of 61, Utermohlen was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.[36] Following his diagnosis, Utermohlen was initially sent to the Queen's Square Hospital.[37] One of the nurses at the hospital, Ron Isaacs, was interested in Utermohlen's drawings, and told him to start drawing self-portraits.[16] The first painting made after his diagnosis, entitled Blue Skies,[lower-alpha 4] is a self-portrait of Utermohlen gripping onto a yellow table, in a place which The Wall Street Journal described as "an empty studio".[7] When neuropsychologist Sebastian Crutch visited Utermohlen in late 1999, he described this painting as representative of him trying to hang on and avoid being swept out of the open window above.[39] Blue Skies was also the last painting that Utermohlen created that has been considered to be "large scale".[40]

Utermohlen started drawing self-portraits in 1995, and continued making them until 2001.[41] Utermohlen also began working on a series of watercolours around this time. These watercolours were titled the Masks series. The series continued from 1994 to 1999, but showed the most activity in 1996.[42] The last non-self-portrait was made in 1997, and was of his wife.[43] Utermohlen's wife explained that his later work such as the Masks series had similarities to movements like German Expressionism.[44]

Shortly after Utermohlen's diagnosis, he and his wife went on a trip to Europe. While in Europe, Utermohlen had his attention towards Diego Velázquez's 1650 Portrait of Pope Innocent X,[45] and according to New Statesman, he had saw the portrait and likened it to versions of the portrait created by Francis Bacon.[37] When the Utermohlens returned to England in 1996, Utermohlen created Self Portrait (In the Studio), which includes the screaming mouth that was a common aspect in Bacon's works.[46]

Alzheimer's disease had began to affect his artworks, as over the next six years, Utermohlen’s self-portraits became increasingly unrecognizable.[47] Utermohlen's wife said in a 2013 interview that she had to cover up all of the mirrors in their house because he was terrified by what he saw there, so Utermohlen did not use a mirror to create these self-portraits. However, this did not affect Utermohlen's transition from figurativism to abstract artworks, according to Sebastian Crutch and his research team.[48] The 1997 self-portrait "Self Portrait with Saw" contains a carpenter's saw to the far right, which his wife thought was referencing an autopsy that would have offered the definite diagnosis of his disease.[49] "Erased Self Portrait" from 1999, was the last attempt of making a self-portrait with a paint brush,[5] and according to Utermohlen's wife, he worked on that self-portrait for nearly two years.[50] The self-portraits from 2000–2001 consist of just a head. "Head I", made in 2000, features the attributes of a head with eyes, a mouth, and a smudge on the left that appears to be an ear. The rest of the portraits were of a blank head, one of them erased.[41] In a 2001 interview with Margaret Discroll, Utermohlen created the self-portrait in order to try to understand "what was happening to me in the only way I can"[51]

In December 2000, Utermohlen had retired from oil painting.[52] By 2002, Utermohlen could no longer draw, and he was sent to the Princess Louise nursing home in 2004. Utermohlen died at the Hammersmith Hospital, on March 21, 2007, from pneumonia, at the age of 73.[16] Utermohlen's wife commented on his death by saying; "He died in 2007, but really he was dead long before that, Bill died in 2000, when the disease meant he was no longer able to draw."[53]

Utermohlen's self-portraits gained further attention after they were published in a 2001 paper from The Lancet, which has often been attributed for the self-portrait's popularity.[54][lower-alpha 5] The director of the Loyola University Museum of Art (LUMA), Pam Ambrose, commented on Utermohlen's self-portraits, stating that "If you did not know that this man was suffering from Alzheimer's, you could simply perceive the work as a stylistic change".[56] Other commenters of Utermohlen's works compared them to Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Edvard Munch.[57] A 2012 article by New Scientist said that Utermohlen's artworks provided viewers with a "unique glimpse into the effects of a declining brain."[58] The existence of his previous self-portraits (which have allowed viewers to create a time-lapse of his mental decline), and the idea that his works give a rare view into the mind of an Alzheimer's patient, were two aspects contributing to the popularity of the self-portraits.[59]

Utermohlen's self-portraits were the inspiration for the 2019 short film Mémorable, which was created after Utermohlen's self-portraits were discovered by the film's director, Bruno Collet.[60] It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2020.[61]