Creole culture—which the artist described as "a rich tradition of cuisine and music, of skeptical judgments, of irony and humor in expression"[3] —played a large role in family life.
He served in the army[6] in World War II from 1942 to 1946, then returned to Berkeley to take a master's degree in fine arts and to earn a teaching certificate.
[11] That same year, Colescott began an etching about the Depression-era gangster, John Dillinger, which grew into a suite of images mixing fact and fiction about the farm boy-turned-outlaw who mesmerized the public in the 1930s.
"A storyteller who skips all the dull parts," as author and curator Gene Baro has called him, Colescott had no compunction about enhancing the narratives with imagined details and anachronistic additions.
In this suite of images, which includes twenty-one intaglio prints, two lithographs, and a handful of watercolors and drawings, Colescott imagines critical moments in the history of printmaking.
[13] For instance, in one scene we witness Alois Senefelder, the inventor of lithography, receiving the secrets of this medium from devilish creatures in the Black Forest; in another plate, Colescott imagines Pablo Picasso at the zoo, admiring animals such as the minotaur that recurs in his work.
For his riff on Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Colescott imagines the fin-de-siècle artist (and enthusiastic chef) in his kitchen, whipping up a lunch for his friends, characters from Lautrec's oeuvre.
Greek gods, American presidents, newspaper tycoons, academics, gangsters, cops, cowboys and Indians, Pilgrims, accountants, scientists, generals, joggers, hunters, show girls, movie stars, the artist himself—you name it, all have been skewered by Colescott's needle.
The artist also focuses on some of his favorite locales, such as California (his birthplace), Wisconsin (where he resides), and New Orleans, the home of his Creole ancestors, as seen in his recent series, Suite Louisiana.
A full catalogue raisonné of Colescott's graphic works co-published by the Milwaukee Art Museum and the University of Wisconsin Press accompanies the exhibition.
"[20] Others have compared his graphic style, as well as his mixture of satire and humanism, to artists of preceding generations, such as Francisco Goya, Honoré Daumier, Max Beckmann, and George Grosz.
[21] "Imagine a lumpish amalgamation of Saul Steinberg and George Grosz, leavened with Red Grooms and peppered with Mel Brooks, and you will have some idea of the erudite slapstick Mr. Colescott engages in.