The Face of Decline
As Alzheimer’s stole his mind, painter William Utermohlen documented the change with self-portraits, helping neurologists to understand the disease. (Thanks, Abbas Raza.)
Susan Boni in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
For a year, William Utermohlen hid his fears and tried to follow his normal routine, teaching art and painting in his London studio.
But when his art historian wife, Patricia, finally got inside to see a canvas, she had an unpleasant revelation:
It was blank.
William Utermohlen had not produced a thing in all those trips to the studio. He was soon found to be suffering with the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.
After his diagnosis in 1996 at the age of 61, Utermohlen, a South Philadelphia native who graduated from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, started to paint with purpose once again.
This time, the superb draftsman, who had always been able to capture the tiniest detail in his commissioned portraits, decided to paint himself.
His compelling series of 14 self-portraits, completed over a five-year period, documents a notable artist’s journey into dementia.
My father became an artist during his jouney into that shadow world we call Alzheimer’s Disease. For most of his life had been a preacher, saving souls on the streets of the various American cities. With retirement came mounting confusion. After a typical period of denial, we had him examined: diagnosis Alzheimers. Soon after that he began to attend a support group where a wonderful thing happened. He started to paint–animals mostly, in cubist planes and startling colors. Never had he shown the least interest in the arts. Alzheimers gave him the eyes of a painter. They revealed new colors, impossible sheets of light. Where we saw shadows, he saw luminosities. In time this vision dimmed and he put down the paintbrush for good. But I cannot help feeling that his so-called dementia opened him to a world he–and the rest of us–would never have otherwise noticed. The experience left me wondering–what if dementia involved not so much a deterioration as, more inscrutibly and perhaps terribly, a transformation?
Comment by Paul Youngquist — April 3, 2006 @ 2:02 am
First of all I must say that I feel honoured to be able to comment on your blog - I enjoy your writings a lot (your “Flight” in “Away” was just great).
I have been visiting this blog on a regular basis for sometime now - you have a wealth of interesting information here: from parodies on Lalloo to the atrocities happening at secret US detention centres. Hats off to you!
Also I find many of your links leading to very interesting and important sites (for eg. the web log of the mother from Iraq)..
Comment by Arvindh — April 3, 2006 @ 4:49 pm
Thank you for this post.
The portraits are brilliant and you’ve introduced me to an artist whose work is so inspiring.
Comment by Fingers — April 4, 2006 @ 3:32 am