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Nothing Wooden in Nickle collages at UIC
Robert Nickle’s collages
represent one of the highest achievements of contemporary art in Chicago.
In the last four
decades, only two other Chicagoans – photographer Harry Callahan and
sculptor Martin Puryear- created work on directly comparable levels.
But those artists moved
away, whereas Nickle stayed. And, sadly true to form when it comes
to abstract art in Chicago, his work has not appeared in a significant
local exhibition for years, the last show being just before his death, at
age 62, in 1980.
The retrospective of
Nickle collages at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Gallery 400,
400 S. Peoria Street, is thus both welcome and long overdue, for it is the
first exhibition since the artist began showing that presents enough
pieces (33) from enough years (22) to reveal the depth and breadth of his
achievement.
Because Nickle taught
for 17 years at UIC’s School of Art and Design, it is especially fitting
the exhibition is where it is, as a tribute completely free from
commercial motives.
Nickle was, after all, a
retiring artist who, unlike many of his colleagues, never pushed for
recognition and seemed unconcerned when he attained it.
Nickle’s studio had long
lines of tables supporting as many as 50 collages he would move among like
a chess master playing several games simultaneously. A piece was
finished only when he felt it could hang next to a work by the artists he
most admired, Piet Mondrian and Paul Klee. It was not unusual for
him to labor over some collages for 20 years or more.
Nickle began a piece by
juxtaposing found and weathered papers. But when bringing them
together caused results he expected, he would begin again. And he
said “If something happened that there was no way anybody in the world
could have predicted, then I had my nucleus.”
Each collage, Nickle
maintained, came together as if on its own, independent of his effort.
The exhibition does not
unfold chronologically, so viewers do not get a sense of strongly defined
periods. But Nickle’s work evolved, broadly speaking, from the
techtonic to the organic, from pieces tightly cohering as grids to pieces
loosely hanging together, cloudlike.
The show presents
exceptions to every idea about his collages gained from earlier
exhibitions, for Nickle worked large and small, with paper and other
substances, including commercial printing and handwriting in pieces of
both high and muted color.
For some years, he also
created pieces in two or more parts, and it’s a pity we do not see more of
them. But overall, work by work, Nickle was most concerned with what
he called, late in life, “dependent independence.” Because of it,
collages from so many years now hang together so beautifully, strong yet
always compatible.
Anyone coming to
Nickle’s work for the first time can scarcely do better. This is a
great show for a great artist.
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