TOM HUCK: BUGS

2014 Kranzberg Exhibition Series

Local artist Tom Huck designed two bug-like playground "springers," Buzzer and Dottie, and a climbing apparatus, Whisker the War Werm, based on a series of his original woodcut designs inspired by the many insects inhabiting the micro-environment of the Park. Huck’s first public artwork, these monumental insects illustrate how both art and nature, when experienced together—and with a sprinkle of mischief—can inspire creativity and amusement in both children and adults.

Huck came to the sculptural designs by way of woodblock printmaking. This is a medium he mastered and gained notoriety for during a blossoming career with his company, Evil Prints. Recently, Huck began displaying the woodblock relief used to make the print impression along with the final paper prints. The wood plates used to transfer ink from roller, to matrix, to paper have a strange, tactile, sculptural quality that is often as charming as the final product. This led, by way of experiment, to the complete three-dimensional design of Laumeier’s newest commissions Buzzer, Dottie and Whisker the War Werm: woodblock prints come to life.

Sponsors + SupportERS

Tom Huck: Bugs is supported by a generous grant from Mid-America Arts Alliance, National Endowment for the Arts and Missouri Arts Council, with additional support provided by Ellen and Durb Curlee. The Kranzberg Exhibition Series is generously supported by Nancy and Ken Kranzberg. 

Special thanks to Warren Sauer of L.E. Sauer Machine Company for his expertise on the fabrication of these artworks.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Tom Huck was born in 1971 in Potosi, Missouri. He received his M.F.A. in Printmaking from Washington University in St. Louis and his B.F.A. in Drawing from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 1993. Huck's selected solo and group exhibitions include the St. Louis Art Museum; International Print Center, New York; Kumu Art Museum, Tallin, Estonia; Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis; Daum Art Museum, Sedalia, Missouri; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas, Austin; Biennale Internationale d’Estampe Contemporaine de Trois-Rivieres, Quebec; Mesa Arts Center, Arizona; University of Windsor Gallery of Art, Windsor, Ontario; COBRA Museum of Modern Art, Amsterdam; Lamar Gallery, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles; and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. His woodcut prints are included in numerous public and private collections, including the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts; Milwaukee Art Museum; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Nelson Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; New York Public Library; Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas; the St. Louis Art Museum; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Huck earned a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2011. He resides in St. Louis where he owns Evil Prints, a studio where he produces his own woodcuts and offers printmaking classes.

IMAGE GALLERY