by Robert Studwood Hues, Famous Art Critic
What follows is a rather high-minded exploration of writer and artist Chris Auman.
Part 1
Instead of discussing my achievements in the arts, I prefer to let the critics interpret my work and explain my career. That’s what “Famous Art Critic” Robert Studwood Hughes did in his three-part series A Portrait of the Artist As A (Very) Young Man which you are invited to read below.
This series ran in issues #27-29 of the esteemed publication Reglar Wiglar. The first installment appeared in Reglar Wiglar #27. — The Artist Chris Auman, Chicago, IL, March 2025
Genius? Rebel? Provocateur?
In the 1970s, Christopher P. Auman was all of these things. He challenged authority, the status quo, and the very idea of what art could be. In less than a decade Auman would shock the art world, only to give up in disgust at the start of the 1980s.
In just a few short years, however, he would channel his raw talent into great works that continue to influence our culture even today.
After abandoning visual art, Auman would become a novelist, newspaper publisher, and media mogul where he would push the envelope further and further into the stratosphere!
1970-1973
1970 was a turbulent year, like all the years preceding it and every year since. In 1970, the Vietnam War was still raging and U.S. troops had invaded Cambodia.
On the home front, at Kent State University, four students were shot dead by the Ohio National Guard. Movies in 1970 parodied war (M*A*S*H, Catch 22) and glorified warriors (Patton, Kelly’s Heroes).
It was into this chaotic world, on the 111th day of 1970 at 4 AM, that Christopher Patrick Auman was born. It was April 21st and a Tuesday.
Immediately upon birth, Auman was appalled by the injustice and hypocrisy he saw in the world. He was torn by his own government’s misguided containment policy towards the rise of the worldwide communist threat.
Simon and Garfunkel were singing about a bridge that spanned troubled waters. Edwin Starr was asking the question, “War, what is it good for?” “Absolutely nothing” was the answer Starr provided to his own question.
It was a turbulent time to be sure, but it was also a great time to be alive and to be an artist! However, even though Auman had a firm grasp on the state of world affairs, it would be several years before he could get a firm grasp on a crayon.
1974-1975
The Red Scribble
By the early ‘70s, the revolutionary promises of the ‘60s were as dead as its heroes Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King. The Left’s favorite punching bag, Richard Nixon, was out. Ford was in. The war was winding down but still raged on, and the U.S. challenge to Communism would pop up elsewhere, everywhere, all over the globe.
It was in this spirit of conflict and uncertainty that Auman created his first work of art. The Red Scribble was a study in turmoil.
Like the lines of the drawing, the Communist Threat was swirling around the globe. The challenge had not gone unmet, however. Would it be contained by the “Imperialist” ambitions of the United States, whose U.S. Army is represented by a sharp green angle that suggests a set of jaws ready to snap down on Third World dictators?
Or would it continue to circle and engulf the world?
And what would the end result be?
Auman was asking the questions with this piece, it was up to the politicians to provide the answers.
Booze & Religion
Auman was not one to shy away from controversial or taboo subjects in his work. Religion and substance abuse were fair game.
Recognizing that religion, like drugs and alcohol, could also be used as a crutch, Auman brought that point into sharp focus in 1974 with Booze & Religion.
Experimenting with color in this painting, Auman depicts a giant martini glass rejecting the garnishes of conformity. The maraschino cherries hurl themselves down to pelt the Catholic Church (represented by the cross) that Auman had been baptized into, without his consent, four years prior. He had no voice then. He had one now: a loud one.
In typical Auman fashion, he refused to spell his name correctly, preferring to employ an almost dyslexic style to his signature that other preschoolers would soon adopt, further drawing the ire of authority figures.
Mister Blue Pants
In 1975, the artist Chris Auman entered his “Giant Head Small Hat” period. Depicting a variety of characters with giant heads fitted with comically undersized hats showed that the young artist still wasn’t comfortable in his own (yellow?) skin.
Detailing the fashions of the time with extra-wide colorful belts and tight blue jeans, Auman questioned what it was to be masculine in androgynous 1970s America. Mister Blue Pants defines a paradox of the time; can a man still be a man in a large green belt?
The answer to that question was a firm and resounding, yes, no, maybe, who cares?
Here again, Auman refused to sign his work, preferring to let others apply the labels.
Smiling Turkey Man
The graphic and disturbing Smiling Turkey Man demonstrates Auman’s disgust with the American holiday of Thanksgiving, where thousands of innocent turkeys are slaughtered, their organs removed, cooked, then stuffed back into their carcass before being roasted in an oven for hours and served with delicious side dishes of cranberries and mashed potatoes.
Mmmmm. Yum!
The Broken Hearted Cowboy
The meaning of this work is hard to miss: the cowboy has a broken heart. But why is he so sad?
Is he overwhelmed with guilt caused by the genocide perpetrated against the Aboriginal population at the hands of the U.S. Government?
Is he lonely on the prairie?
Does he miss his arms?
We don’t get the answers to these questions. In life, do we truly know what makes us happy or sad? Could it just be that the sun was particularly scribbly that day?
Vengeance of the Earth Mother
Global Warming was not a household term in 1975. It was in this year, in fact, that Wallace Broecker, a geochemist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, first used those two words together in print.
The idea that humans could impact their environment so acutely and with such catastrophic results horrified the five-year-old artist.
When the sun’s rays are no longer filtered by the ozone layer thereby melting the polar ice caps and causing the ocean to reclaim the terra firma, the result is an apocalyptic scene of death and destruction, the message becomes clear: Reduce CO2 emissions 20 percent by 1980 now!
Part 2
Read Part 2 of this fascinating expose of the artist Chris Auman.