Tom Uttech

(American, born 1942)

Tom Uttech is an American artist best known for his twilit landscapes of North American woodlands. Often teeming with wildlife and steeped in mystery, his paintings and prints evoke 19th-century American transcendentalist writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Since these pictures are about nature and our role in it, the knowledge gained might grow into love of nature, and thus into concern for its well-being,” Uttech’s said. “This concern could lead to action to protect nature and, therefore, ourselves. The best response to my paintings would be for you to go straight to the wildest piece of land you can find and sit down to let it wash over you and tell you secrets.” Born in 1942 in Merrill, WI, he developed his unique style while studying at the Layton School of Art in Milwaukee and at the University of Cincinnati, where he received his MFA in 1976. Notably, Uttech's work depicts the region between Wisconsin and the Quetico Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. Painting titles, such as Enassamishhinjijweian (2009), are derived from the Native American Ojibwe tribe, who inhabited the region before European colonization. Uttech was included in the 1975 Whitney Biennial and been the subject of several solo exhibitions at Alexandre Gallery in New York. He currently lives and works in Saukville, WI. The artist’s works are included in the collections of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AR, the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, WI, and the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in Loretto, PA.