It is a sad day for Chicago art. Today learned today that the great Chicago artist, Mr. Imagination, has died.
I got to know Mr. Imagination in the early to mid 90s when he lived in an apartment at Clark and Sheffield. He had a regal bearing and a gentle intelligence that always made me feel like I was before some ancient king. His thrones and staves, all made from bottlecaps and other make-ready items, might have helped with that impression as well. But it all befit him.
When I gave him a copy of my first book, BRICKS, he pulled out a piece of sandstone and made me a pencil holder for my book signings:
He also made a sandstone replica of the cover. He just loved to make art, and share it with people in his everyday life. He moved aways years ago, and I always thought of him when I went by his old place on Clark Street. But now the world doesn’t have him, and we’re missing someone great.
Here’s the full FB note from the indispensable Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art:
Remembering Mr. Imagination
March 30, 1948 – May 30, 2012
Although his given name is Gregory Warmack, he was known around the world as Mr. Imagination. The third of nine children, he was born in Chicago in March 1948. Creating art since he was a young boy growing up on the South Side of Chicago, Greg’s first piece of art for public display was a sign announcing a celebration at the New Star of Bethlehem Baptist Church, where his family attended Sunday services.
Both prodigious and prolific, the incredible world of Mr. Imagination is “a work of art in progress.” Mr. Imagination’s talent was such that when handed an object, he saw in it things that the rest of us couldn’t see. This extraordinary gift allowed Mr. Imagination to transform common material into resplendent objects of art with new life, vitality and meaning.
His work attained national and international recognition. He also was committed to inspiring children and community with a series of outdoor embedded concrete sculptures (or “grottos,” as he calls them). The first was the Elliot Donnelley Youth Center on Chicago’s South Side; others (domes, benches, arches, walls) can be found in Milwaukee, Orlando (for the House of Blues), Winston-Salem, and Bethlehem (the Millennial Arch at Lehigh University and the Lehigh and Northampton Transportation Authority’s “Grotto” bus shelter at the Banana Factory.)
Mr. Imagination relocated to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 2002, to find more peace and green in his life. In January 2008, a fire destroyed his home, killing his beloved dog Pharaoh and charring much of the work he had stored there. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, he salvaged what he could to create new work. In September 2009, with the help of many friends, Mr. Imagination bought a home in the Atlanta area to fulfill a dream to create an Angel Garden for all the children and artists of the world to come together and bring artistic life to everything that has been thrown away and discarded.
In 2009, Intuit presented Mr. Imagination with its Visionary Award in celebration of his incredible persistence, vision and contributions to self-taught and outsider art.
