William Hawkins: An Imaginative Geography

From his pictures of exotic wild animals to dramatic depictions of the major buildings in his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, artist William Hawkins always wanted his pictures to sweep viewers off their feet. William L. Hawkins: An Imaginative Geography is the first major exhibition in more than a decade to feature this fascinating autodidact, presenting his varied work with important examples from his favorite types of subject matter.

Hawkins explored the world through mass media and then re-presented it to the public with a uniquely expressive bravado. He appropriated most of his subjects from drawings and photographic reproductions collected from newspapers, books, calendars, magazines and other popular print media.

Simplifying the forms and heightening the colors, he elaborated passages with vigorous, swirling brushwork. He also taught himself sophisticated techniques such as scumbling, which he used to great effect. As he became more successful, Hawkins began to collage magazine clippings and found objects into his paintings. He also developed a technique he called “puffing up” a shape: building it up from the painting surface by mixing cornmeal into the enamel paint.

Drawn from important public and private collections across the United States and Europe, William L. Hawkins: An Imaginative Geography will include 52 of Hawkins’s most important paintings, some well-known pieces and others rarely seen. The exhibition will cover all of Hawkins’s favorite subject matters, including cityscapes, landscapes, exotic places, animals, current events, historic scenes and religious scenes. The exhibition also will include one of his rare freestanding sculptural assemblages.

Hawkins left a large body of drawings, 10 of which are in the exhibition. Also featured are many of Hawkins’s most powerful paintings, including Prudential NYC and two versions each of Ohio Stadium, Red Dog Running, Tasmanian Tiger and other iconic subjects.

One of the more remarkable accomplishments of this exhibition is that it brings together eight of the nine known versions of Hawkins’s Last Supper, one of his best-known subjects. 

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website 

Whether or not you go, William L. Hawkins: An Imaginative Geography focuses on the artist’s most aesthetically successful, confident and characteristic works. Although he has long enjoyed a prominent place in the canon of self-taught artists, the Ohio painter William Lawrence Hawkins (1895–1990) has received less than his fair share of attention in recent times. This monograph―the first in 20 years―introduces Hawkins’s exuberant paintings to a wider audience at a time when more and more general museums are recognizing the powerful appeal of America’s self-taught artists.

William L. Hawkins: An Imaginative Geography includes approximately 50 of Hawkins’s most important paintings, both well-known pieces and others rarely seen. All of Hawkins’s favorite subjects are covered here, including cityscapes, landscapes, exotic places, animals, current events, historic scenes and religious scenes. Also reproduced are a rarely seen assemblage and a selection from his large oeuvre of drawings.

Click to purchase: William L. Hawkins: An Imaginative Geography