Lon Michels: Disrupting Patterns

Lon Michels: Disrupting Patterns

Lon Michels: Disrupting Patterns celebrates the life and career of one of Wisconsin’s most distinguished artists with the first major retrospective and the largest exhibition of his work to date. The decision to undertake this project was an easy one for the Museum of Wisconsin Art. Michel’s Neo-Pop figuration with its use of decorative pattern is strikingly original and not as well known as it deserves. Accompanying the artist’s first major retrospective this catalog spans the arc of his career from the early 1980’s to the present day. Even a cursory look at Michel’s forty-year career reveals that the pattern of his life was established from childhood. Echoing the words of Louise Nevelson, for whom Michel’s had worked as a studio assistant in the mid-1980’s, the direction of his life seemed predetermined: he knew he would be an artist. What he did not know was that living would be so hard or filled with tragedy.

Lon Michels: Disrupting Patterns is published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name on view from October 28, 2023 through January 21, 2024 at the Museum of Wisconsin Art.
100 Pages, Soft Cover
Published: 2024

Click here to learn more about Lon Michels: Disrupting Patterns

MOWA Exclusive