Jim Atkinson and Kathy Clifford
Artist
Ann Mikolowski
(American, 1940-1999)
Date1983
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions3 1/8 × 2 3/8 in. (7.9 × 6 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift of Ken Mikolowski, 2009
Object numberUAC3932
Description“The conundrum is that there are no signature brushstrokes, no palette she favors, and no overt signs of her personality in her realist paintings,” the poet, art critic, and curator John Yau once wrote in his essay on Ann Mikolowski entitled “To Have and to Hold”. “She used photographs to get her subject matter, but she was neither a photorealist nor someone who perfected a machinelike approach...I think the reason Mikolowski never developed a style was because she wanted to honor the world in its details.”Donated by her husband Ken Mikolowski, Jim Atkinson and Kathy Clifford is one such work of Mikolowski’s that reflects her attention to detail in her miniature portraits--so small, in fact, that it could fit into the palm of one’s hand. The intimate size of this painting reflects the intimacy associated with the subjects, who were friends of Ann Mikolowski. Reminiscent of late 19th and early 20th century mementos, small framed daguerreotypes or photographs were carried in lockets to commemorate relationships with loved ones, often during times of war. Ann Mikolowski’s miniature works tend to depict people, usually friends and artistic contemporaries from the Cass Corridor movement that thrived from the ‘60s to ‘80s.
Fondly capturing a brief moment in time, Mikolowski depicts the figures as both holy and informal, blending the ordinary with the extraordinary. Both figures are sitting, leaning back casually with their feet carelessly propped up on a radiator. Perhaps elevating the sitters as holy, a halo of pale blue light hovers behind the figures, mostly centralizing on Kathy Clifford. Both figures look off to the left side of the composition, as if participating in a conversation with someone beyond the parameters of the painting. Jim Atkinson smiles amiably while Kathy, physically further from the direction of their gaze, glares downwardly, looking critically or perhaps angrily at the object or subject beyond the frame. Her one foot resting on the radiator is nearly falling off as she fashionably hooks her hand around her ankle. Jim and Kathy remain in this polaroid-like, sentimental piece, starkly contrasting a dark background and frozen in momentary emotion.
Born in Detroit in 1940, Ann Mikolowski attended Wayne State University and the Center for Creative Studies in the 1960’s. In 1969, while she was still a student, Ann Mikolowski and her husband, Ken Mikolowski, founded the Alternative Press, publishing poetry, original artists' postcards and announcements, as well as bumper-stickers and other artists' multiples. Together in the basement of their Detroit home, they were able to reach subscribers across the world. Printing on an antique letterpress, the couple hand-set the type for each poem and announcement. Ann's intimate pointillist illustrations would accompany the majority of the work they published. For thirty years, Alternative Press published not only the work of leading Detroit artists, but also that of world-renowned figures such as Allen Ginsberg, Andrei Codrescu, Ray Johnston, Gary Snyder and Philip Guston. Ann Mikolowski passed away in Ann Arbor, MI on August 6, 1999, due to a difficult battle with breast cancer.
Written by Leena Ghannam
06/05/2018
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