Fall 2021 Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA) Newsletter

STAFF FOCUS
MEET MMoCA’S BRUCE CROWNOVER
A Master Printer in Our Midst
Most of the time when you catch a glimpse
of Bruce Crownover at MMoCA, he’s
quietly building a movable wall, painting
galleries during an exhibition installation,
or repairing a theater chair. Those tasks,
however, give away nothing of the depth
of Crownover’s expertise as a professional
artist and craftsman.
In 2019, he joined MMoCA’s staff as
Assistant Director of Installations and
Facilities, having retired in 2018 from his
position as a master printer at Tandem
Press, a publisher of fine art prints in
the School of Education at UW-Madison.
Crownover volunteered at Tandem
through his years in the MFA printmaking
program at UW-Madison, and eventually
took a full-time job at Tandem, where he worked for 30 years.
Crownover started making art as a kid, beginning with drawing—which he calls “the root of printmaking”—along with crafts,
and chemistry, another facet of certain types of printmaking. One of the joys of printmaking, he says, is that it’s “democratic.”
Once you carve the block of wood, you are able to make multiple prints. From beginning to end, the first print can take several
months to complete.
During his tenure at Tandem, he collaborated with over 100 artists, including Jim Dine, Sam Gilliam, Alison Saar, and Mickalene
Thomas. He’s created thousands of fine art prints using a variety of print media from relief, intaglio, and lithography to papermaking
and hand painting, using encaustic, acrylic and watercolor, fabric dye, and tinted shellac.
As it happened, it was Crownover’s longtime friend Gilliam who connected him to MMoCA, when Gilliam appointed him special
exhibit installation consultant for his large-scale fabric artwork in BIG: Large-Scale Artworks from the Permanent Collection
(2018). It wasn’t long after that gig that Crownover was hired on at the Museum.
In the last decade, Crownover has trained his attention more fully on a lifelong passion: making art in, and of, some of the
most beautiful—and most imperiled—places in the natural world. With two artist colleagues, printmaker Todd Anderson and
photographer Ian van Coller—known as The Last Glacier collective—Crownover has published three books and is working
on a fourth, that investigate observable changes in the natural environment. He hopes that the collective’s work will make a
difference in the conversation about climate change.
The first book, The Last Glacier was published in 2015. “We were addressing how these glaciers are receding from climate
change,” he explained. A second book focused on the receding glaciers at Rocky Mountain National Park was published in
2018. Set for release next is the trio’s recording via art of the incredible migration of juniper and piñon pine in the American
Southwest, in response to a warmer, dryer environment.
The artists are at work now on a fourth book, based on a trip they took to Baffin Island, Canada, where they spent time in
Auyuittuq National Park.
“It’s a way for people to look at these issues through an artistic lens. For some people, this may be a call to action to go and see
the places themselves,” before they are gone. “I’m kind of subversive in the way I make art.”
Work by The Last Glacier collective and Wisconsin painter Matthew Warren Lee will be on display Nov 12, 2021-Jan 23, 2022,
at the James Watrous Gallery in Madison. Visit wisconsinacademy.org for more information.
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