The story of Thomas Chouteau is also partly the story of Father Edward Catich. The man who was the face of the St. Ambrose art department for four decades until his death 25 years ago was also Chouteau's instructor, and drew him into teaching at the Catholic school.
Just like Catich, Chouteau - who is now 81 - has inspired and educated generations of artists at St. Ambrose. He will be honored this weekend with the 2004 Harley Award at the Riverssance Festival of Fine Art in Lindsay Park.
To see the scope of Chouteau's influence, you need to look no further than his family. Five of his eight children studied art and are practicing artists, including Tom Chouteau, the noted maker of giant kaleidoscopes in the Quad Cities. A number of his 27 grandkids are also artistically inclined. Chouteau's house in western Davenport - where the family has lived since the 1950s - has a few pieces of his art, but the walls are mostly covered with works by friends, students, and progeny.
Chouteau said he didn't actively encourage his children to pursue art. "They kind of grew up with it ... art everywhere," he said. "I saw the whole thing as developing creative people."
The Harley Award-winner grew up in southeastern Kansas with artistic interests. "I sketched and drew and impressed my uncles and aunts," he said. A high-school art teacher encouraged him to send a farm painting - "The regionalist painters [such as Grant Wood] were the big thing then," Chouteau said - to a New York competition, at which it won an honorable mention.
But art had to wait. Chouteau worked at Boeing for four years before joining the Navy in 1944. After three years in the service, he left to study art. An artist-priest in Oklahoma recommended Catich and St. Ambrose, and Chouteau started there in 1948. Catich required freshmen to make their own rosaries, and Chouteau still carries around in his coat pocket the one he made more than 50 years ago.
Catich's passion was calligraphy (See "World-Renowned Artist Gets His Due in His Own Backyard," River Cities' Reader Issue 478, May 26, 2004.), and St. Ambrose stressed the liberal arts. Those philosophies instilled in Chouteau an understanding that art is first and foremost a way to communicate with people.
Calligraphy, Chouteau noted, "was really understanding the letter," and stressed two goals: legibility (which applies to individual characters) and readability (which deals with letters when they're put together). "You can have a lot of nifty parts," Chouteau said, "but if the whole doesn't work," the artist has failed. That overarching principle of calligraphy applies to all the visual arts, he said.
After graduating, Chouteau worked at the Rock Island Arsenal, doing illustrations for things such as maintenance manuals. He then worked as an artist at Photo Art Engraving in Moline.
In 1959, Catich approached him about teaching at St. Ambrose. "I think he settled on me when I was a student," Chouteau said, because the educator invited him to meet the likes of John and Isabel Bloom. "That was part of getting me involved in the art scene," he said.
When asked why Catich chose him, Chouteau at first said he didn't know. "All of the visual arts are meant to communicate something," he said eventually. "He understood that I understood that very quickly."
Chouteau taught mostly juniors and seniors in his 39 years at St. Ambrose, focusing on design, composition, and anatomy and figure drawing. He introduced the first nude models at the college.
Chouteau's artwork has a wide range, from ink-and-brush drawings to watercolors to wire sculptures. When he was teaching, he said, "I was painting watercolors like crazy. ... Many of them were gone [sold] before I had a chance to photograph them." One of the works in Chouteau's house was a gift to his wife, an abstract watercolor that nearly becomes a craggy landscape because of a small number of identifiable animal shapes.
That penchant for watercolors also came from Catich, who eschewed the teaching of oil painting. "He thought watercolor was a much better way to introduce color, contrast, and perspective ... and very quickly," Chouteau said. While students working with oils can labor over their works and cover mistakes, watercolor is an unforgiving medium.
Although clearly influenced by Catich, Chouteau learned quickly that he couldn't be a Catich clone in the classroom; he started teaching an art-survey course and understood all the ways in which he was not his mentor. "He was very vociferous and very ecstatic, and could quote from books," said the soft-spoken Chouteau.
Now that he's retired, Chouteau doesn't create much art. "I make notecards to send to my grandchildren," he said.
But he does plan to restore that now-fragile painting from 1940, his senior year of high school. The work, called Kansas Gold, brings to mind Grant Wood, a clear early influence. It's also obvious that another Iowa legend, Edward Catich, had a major impact on Chouteau's art and career. And Chouteau in turn has touched the lives of hundreds of friends and students.
Just like Catich, Chouteau - who is now 81 - has inspired and educated generations of artists at St. Ambrose. He will be honored this weekend with the 2004 Harley Award at the Riverssance Festival of Fine Art in Lindsay Park.
To see the scope of Chouteau's influence, you need to look no further than his family. Five of his eight children studied art and are practicing artists, including Tom Chouteau, the noted maker of giant kaleidoscopes in the Quad Cities. A number of his 27 grandkids are also artistically inclined. Chouteau's house in western Davenport - where the family has lived since the 1950s - has a few pieces of his art, but the walls are mostly covered with works by friends, students, and progeny.
Chouteau said he didn't actively encourage his children to pursue art. "They kind of grew up with it ... art everywhere," he said. "I saw the whole thing as developing creative people."
The Harley Award-winner grew up in southeastern Kansas with artistic interests. "I sketched and drew and impressed my uncles and aunts," he said. A high-school art teacher encouraged him to send a farm painting - "The regionalist painters [such as Grant Wood] were the big thing then," Chouteau said - to a New York competition, at which it won an honorable mention.
But art had to wait. Chouteau worked at Boeing for four years before joining the Navy in 1944. After three years in the service, he left to study art. An artist-priest in Oklahoma recommended Catich and St. Ambrose, and Chouteau started there in 1948. Catich required freshmen to make their own rosaries, and Chouteau still carries around in his coat pocket the one he made more than 50 years ago.
Catich's passion was calligraphy (See "World-Renowned Artist Gets His Due in His Own Backyard," River Cities' Reader Issue 478, May 26, 2004.), and St. Ambrose stressed the liberal arts. Those philosophies instilled in Chouteau an understanding that art is first and foremost a way to communicate with people.
Calligraphy, Chouteau noted, "was really understanding the letter," and stressed two goals: legibility (which applies to individual characters) and readability (which deals with letters when they're put together). "You can have a lot of nifty parts," Chouteau said, "but if the whole doesn't work," the artist has failed. That overarching principle of calligraphy applies to all the visual arts, he said.
After graduating, Chouteau worked at the Rock Island Arsenal, doing illustrations for things such as maintenance manuals. He then worked as an artist at Photo Art Engraving in Moline.
In 1959, Catich approached him about teaching at St. Ambrose. "I think he settled on me when I was a student," Chouteau said, because the educator invited him to meet the likes of John and Isabel Bloom. "That was part of getting me involved in the art scene," he said.
When asked why Catich chose him, Chouteau at first said he didn't know. "All of the visual arts are meant to communicate something," he said eventually. "He understood that I understood that very quickly."
Chouteau taught mostly juniors and seniors in his 39 years at St. Ambrose, focusing on design, composition, and anatomy and figure drawing. He introduced the first nude models at the college.
Chouteau's artwork has a wide range, from ink-and-brush drawings to watercolors to wire sculptures. When he was teaching, he said, "I was painting watercolors like crazy. ... Many of them were gone [sold] before I had a chance to photograph them." One of the works in Chouteau's house was a gift to his wife, an abstract watercolor that nearly becomes a craggy landscape because of a small number of identifiable animal shapes.
That penchant for watercolors also came from Catich, who eschewed the teaching of oil painting. "He thought watercolor was a much better way to introduce color, contrast, and perspective ... and very quickly," Chouteau said. While students working with oils can labor over their works and cover mistakes, watercolor is an unforgiving medium.
Although clearly influenced by Catich, Chouteau learned quickly that he couldn't be a Catich clone in the classroom; he started teaching an art-survey course and understood all the ways in which he was not his mentor. "He was very vociferous and very ecstatic, and could quote from books," said the soft-spoken Chouteau.
Now that he's retired, Chouteau doesn't create much art. "I make notecards to send to my grandchildren," he said.
But he does plan to restore that now-fragile painting from 1940, his senior year of high school. The work, called Kansas Gold, brings to mind Grant Wood, a clear early influence. It's also obvious that another Iowa legend, Edward Catich, had a major impact on Chouteau's art and career. And Chouteau in turn has touched the lives of hundreds of friends and students.
