Earl Staley
(b. 1938)
Earl Staley was born in Oak Park, Illinois and grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. In his youth, he enjoyed reading mythology and spending time in museums. His involvement with the Boy Scouts introduced him to nature, camping, mapping, and study of Native American culture, all of which influenced his art. Staley earned his BFA from Illinois Wesleyan University in 1960 and his MFA from the University of Arkansas in 1963. He has been a life-long teacher sharing his art expertise with students at Washington University in St. Louis, Rice University and the University of St. Thomas in Houston.
Though Staley’s style of art has varied throughout his prolific career, his themes have been fairly consistent with a focus on mythology, maps and memories. His color palette has always been strong with vibrant colors. A critical juncture in Staley’s artistic direction came in 1975 when he read all four volumes of Joseph Campbell’s The Masks of God. At that point he began painting his life stories within a mythological framework. Shortly after, he began traveling to Mexico to visit artist Lucas Johnson. There he encountered Day of the Dead celebrations and Mexican folk art, imagery that resonated with him because of his Halloween birthday. He became particularly fascinated with skulls during this time and used them as a metaphor for a painful divorce.
Staley’s career took off during the 80s with inclusion of his work in the 1984 Whitney Biennale and the seminal “Fresh Paint” exhibition at the MFA Houston. He also had a solo retrospective exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston and The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York. In 1985 Staley was commissioned to design the theatre sets and costumes for the Houston Grand Opera’s production of Charles Gounod’s Faust. These sets, including a 30-foot-tall tree, earned rave reviews and travelled for 35 years to such varied locations as Atlanta, Seattle, San Diego and Washington, DC.
Staley’s artwork may be found in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Art; the New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; the San Antonio Museum of Art; the Dallas Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont.
Art on Campus
Grotesquery with Nine Landscapes
Year: 1983
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas
Location: Speech and Hearing Student Lounge
Gift of Betty Moody in Memory of Clint Willour and Reid Mitchell
“Grotesquery with Nine Landscapes” is an excellent example of Earl Staley at his best. It was painted in Italy after Staley received the coveted Prix de Rome prize in 1981. European influence is evident in the twisting statuesque figures of nymphs and cupids and in the landscape elements of hills, cypress trees and villas. Grotesquery means distortion, unnaturalness or ugliness, and in art, this type of imagery is frequently found in theatrical settings. The painting has an unusual composition in that each of the nine disparate landscapes is segmented into small sections framed by columns of contorted figures. The bold, loose brushstrokes and luscious colors of purples, pinks and greens are classic Staley.
This painting belonged to renowned Texas art curator Clint Willour and was featured in the 1984 retrospective “Earl Staley: 1973-1983” organized by Linda Cathcart of the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston and Marcia Tucker of The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.