Spiritual in the Material

Rudy Rotter must have been a fine dentist. He never looked into my mouth, but we did look into each other's eyes one day, years after he gave up dentistry and devoted himself entirely to art. What I saw was a warm and kindly man of integrity with no apparent interest in the fuss and pretense of the art world. He must have liked what he saw, too, because he spontaneously presented me with a wood and metal sculpture of a rearing, whimsical, Chagall-like creature.

When Rotter died in 2001 at age 88, he left behind a warehouse filled with thousands of artworks. A small but carefully chosen sample, curated by Debra Brehmer and Michael Davidson, is on exhibit at the Portrait Society Gallery through Jan. 9.

"Rudy Rotter: We are Family" examines only a narrow sliver of the output by the prolific Manitowoc artist, who created some 17,000 sculptures, mixed-media pieces and works on paper from 1956 through his death. The exhibition makes no attempt to categorize or chronicle the fruits of a remarkable creative labor that spanned many decades, media and styles. The Portrait Society show focuses instead on Rotter's love of family-not simply the nuclear variety, but extending to humanity as a whole as the family of man and woman.

The son of Russian Jewish immigrants on Milwaukee's Mitchell Street, Rotter turned often to biblical themes for inspiration. Implicit through much of "We are Family" is the archetype of Adam and Eve, the primal couple at the root of humankind, shining through the mixed-media men and women fashioned from wood and scrap tin from a Manitowoc trophy factory and glittering in metallic red and green like Christmas ornaments. Rotter's Man, Woman, ImaginaryCreatures (1990) also suggests Chagall, with a magic marker on card-stock in a fabulous composition incorporating a human couple haloed with whimsical animals.

Eventually Rotter's imagination ranged as wide as the whole world. The mandala-like flower sprouting from a woman's head in Flower Girl (1993) is reminiscent of Buddhist religious art. With the elongated woodcarvings Man, Woman, Child (1971) and Kneeling Woman and Man (1976), human figures are stacked on each other like African totems. The line of animated but archetypal figures in the woodcarving Children Playing (1970) brings thoughts of Khmer temple carvings.

This remarkable artist worked largely with castoff materials from Manitowoc's once thriving industrial district. Rotter made art from mahogany and teak shipyard remnants, discarded bowling bowls and scrap metal from a nearby foundry. Like many children of immigrants, he was frugal and skilled at making do. Rotter shaped whatever material was at hand according to his spiritual vision, rooted in a particular tradition yet expansive, tolerant and eager to learn.