Reporter Volume 25, No.20 March 10, 1994

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Bureau Staff
Buffalo artist Wes Olmsted will premiere his monumental collage, "The
Temptations of St. Anthony Altarpiece," in an exhibition in the
reading room of the UB Poetry/Rare Books Collection, 420 Capen Hall.
The exhibition will open today with a public reception at 6 p.m. and
will run through April 30. The reading room is open from 9 a.m to 5
p.m. Monday through Friday.
In addition to the altarpiece itself, the exhibit will feature pieces
of assembled sculpture, 20 framed sketches, studies in oil for the
final altarpiece and other related work. 
"The Temptations of St. Anthony Altarpiece" was completed by Olmsted
from 1981-93. Despite its name, it is neither an altarpiece nor a
treatment of the hermit saint to whom it refers.
 It is called an "altarpiece," says Olmsted, because it is a work of
contemplation, meditation and healing, like the altarpieces produced
by artists of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Altarpieces themselves
were less common after the Protestant Reformation, but multi-paneled
works by that name have continued to be produced by artists from
Hieronymous Bosch to mid-20th century painter Max Beckman.
Throughout the ages, a popular subject matter for these artworks has
been the travails of St. Anthony of Egypt, a second century saint who
tried to flee sin by holing up in a desert hermitage. He was pursued
there by all manner of exotic, vicious devils, whom he resisted
through fervent prayer and fasting. Olmsted claims particular
inspiration by the "Temptation of St. Anthony" panel in the Isenheim
Altarpiece, a nine-panel, 13th-cnewald masterwork produced for an
Antonite monastery in Alsace.
"Anthony was tortured nearly to death by the devil in many forms,"
says Olmsted, "but our devils are of a different kind. I've lived
through World War II, the H-bomb, the Korean war, Vietnam. So, instead
of painting demons flying around, I've used images from among the
5,000 that are slammed into our consciousness every day by different
media. The piece is autobiographical. The images I selected have
strongly influenced my life and art. 
The Olmsted altarpiece consists of four 6'x4' panels thickly collaged
with pictures representing what Olmsted considers some of the
principle temptations, horrors and blessings of his lifetime.
The two central panels feature emblems of rampant lust, violence,
naked greed and other sins, which are painted, repainted, painted
under and painted over, all the while competing wildly for attention.
This is a barrage of familiar icons: John-John Kennedy; Exxon
executives; the dark, arthropod shapes of Vietnam's Hueys; the
now-familiar napalmed girl; a dozen owners of large female breasts,
mechanized horsemen of the Apocalypse; McDonald's arches; Madonna in
leather.
These are interrupted by occasional snatches of poetry, musical
scores, bits of Hebrew, newspaper copy, the names of outstanding
battles of the 20th century, and so on. Some references are easily
translated by the viewer, others are more obscure but support the
work's internal cohesion.
To the left of the central panels is a third that the painter calls
one of his meditative, or healing, panels--his "prayer" to Schwartze
Maria ("Black Mary"). More orderly, more organic, darkly subdued, the
central figure is a dark lady in a headdress decorated with eyes. This
is less a black madonna, however, than many black madonnas: Olmsted's
mother, daughter, wife and female friends; Mozart's wife, Our Lady of
Guadalupe, Bernadette Soubirous, the Virgin from the Isenheim
Altarpiece, a servant girl from the movie "Amadeus."
There is even a reference in Japanese to Mahler's Symphony No. 8, a
work that pays homage to Goethe's notion of the Eternal Feminine. In
addition to honoring the progenitors of his own eternal feminine, the
artist says he intended here to reverence the larger spirit of the
life-giving earth mother--the nurturing aspect of women, woman as
alpha and omegaQthe guide into and out of life itself.
On the extreme the right panel is a second "healing" panel, this one
dedicated to the general life force represented by Ghandi, whom
Olmsted calls "life in search of love, not self-destruction." 
The image of the Indian spiritual and political leader that is used
here was, in a true late 20-century manner, taken from one used to
illustrate the cover of a book about the making of Richard
Attenborough's hit film, "Ghandi." It is ringed by those of
Ghandi-like historical figures, like Mother Theresa.
	Olmsted is a Buffalo native who attended Bennett High School
and the Albright Art School in the early 1950s and began exhibiting
his paintings and sculptures in solo and group shows in and around
Buffalo in 1958. His work has appeared most recently in two 1992 shows
at the Anderson Gallery--"Expressions from the Collection" and
"X-Citings." In 1993, the Anderson included Olmsted's work in its
"Santa's First Stop" show. 
	His work is held in several collections, including those of
the Anderson Gallery, the Burchfield Art Center, the
Buscaglia/Castellani Art Gallery and the Auburn University Art
Department.