William Utermohlen

His later works began to attract attention at the beginning of the 21st century.

His self-portraits especially are seen as important in the understanding of the gradual effects of neurocognitive disorders, and have become one of the most well-recognised works of art about Alzheimer's. His late paintings have been widely displayed since his story became known in popular medicine literature.

William Charles Utermohlen (December 5, 1933 – March 21, 2007) was an American figurative artist known for his late-period self-portraits completed after his diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's disease.

William Charles Utermohlen was born on December 5, 1933, in Southern Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as the only child of first-generation German immigrants.

At the time, the area was split along language lines; his family lived on Hicks Street in the German-speaking part of the city, but the Germans that lived there migrated further across the US, which resulted in them living in an Italian bloc.

Utermohlen's parents did not allow him to venture outside of his immediate surrounding; the art critic Manu Sharma speculates that, by making Utermohlen look inwards, such protectiveness had an influence on his artistic development.

Born to first-generation German immigrants in South Philadelphia, Utermohlen earned a scholarship at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA) in 1951.

Utermohlen earned a scholarship at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in 1951 where he studied under the realist artist Walter Stuempfig.

After completing military service, he spent 1953 studying in Europe where he was inspired by Renaissance and Baroque artists.

He completed his military service in 1953, following two years in the Caribbean.

Shortly after, he studied in Europe, traveling through Italy, France and Spain where he was heavily influenced by the works of the Proto-Renaissance artist Giotto and the French Baroque painter Nicolas Poussin.

He graduated from PAFA in 1957 and moved to England, in part because he was attracted to the London art scene.

Utermohlen's wife, the art historian Patricia Redmond, said that "when he was at art school, he was very pretty, and he was chased around by all the homosexual tutors and everybody else ... he didn't care but he didn't fancy them. When he came to England he discovered, amazingly, because the English had always been like this, that we quite liked girlish men."

Utermohlen attended the Ruskin School of Art at the University of Oxford between 1957 and 1959, while he was on the G.I. Bill.

There he met the American artist R. B. Kitaj, whose pop art works had influenced Utermohlen.

After Oxford, he returned to the U.S. for three years.

The cycle conflicted with the optimistic mood of the 1960s due to its reference to medieval literature, according to The Wall Street International, who simultaneously cites the Dante cycle as making him into a mature and committed figurative artist.

The War series references the Vietnam War; and according to Redmond the inclusion of isolated soldiers represented his feelings of being an outsider in the art scene.

He moved to London in 1962 and married the art historian Patricia Redmond in 1965.

He moved to London in 1962 where he met Redmond, whom he married in 1965.

Most of his early paintings can be grouped into six cycles: Mythological (1962–1963), Cantos (or Dante) (1964–1966), Mummers (1969–1970), War (1972–1973), Nudes (1973–1974), and Conversation (1989–1991).

The Dante cycle is named after and inspired by Dante's Inferno.

Both the Mummers and Conversations series are based on early memories; the former, completed between 1968 and 1970, is based on the Mummers Parade of Philadelphia, of which Utermohlen wasn't allowed by his parents to participate in.

In 1969, his artwork was featured in an exhibition at the Marlborough Gallery.

During the late 1970s, in response to the photorealist movement, he printed photographs onto a canvas and painting directly over them.

He relocated to Massachusetts in 1972 to teach art at Amherst College before returning to London in 1975.

His early work consists of separate six cycles, each of which covers themes and subject matter ranging from mythology to war to nudes.

Most of Utermohlen's life was spent in obscurity.

He taught art at Amherst College in Massachusetts from 1972, where he spent his last year as an artist-in-residence.

In 1975, Redmond received her master degree at Massachusetts, after which they had again returned to London, eventually gaining British nationality in 1992.

His early works are mostly figurative, and described by the medical academic James M. Stubenrauch as "exuberant, at times surrealistic" style of expressionism.

He was diagnosed in 1995, having had progressive memory loss since 1991.

After diagnosis he began a series of self-portraits influenced by both the figurative painter Francis Bacon and cinematographers from the German Expressionism movement.

Examples of this technique include his 1997 Self-Portrait (Split) and two portraits of Redmond.

During this perios, Utermohlen did not explain his work or discuss them with Redmond as she was an art historian, and he feared she would interfere with his creative progress.

Redmond believes he was "absolutely right" in this approach as she would likely have highlighted faults in his work.

Regarding Utermohlen's art style, Redmond said to The New York Times that "he was never quite in the same time slot with what was going on. Everybody was Abstract expressionist, [while] he was solemnly drawing the figure."

She explained in a Studio 360 interview that Utermohlen was "puzzled and worried, because he couldn't work in [a] totally abstract way", as he considered the figure "incredibly important".

His art is mainly centered on portraiture, although Utermohlen has also made murals at the Royal Free Hospital and at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue.

The last of his self-portraits was completed circa 2001, some six years before his death.