Rosy Comon

Jim Nutt

1967-68

acrylic on Plexiglas, reverse painting, in artist's painted frame

37" x 26"

Jim Nutt’s freewheeling portrait catches the spontaneous line, the love of caricature, and the high wit of Imagist art. Rosie Comon, the title a pun on County Roscommon in Ireland and a reference to the Chicago Irish, is a brawling kind of reddish-haired guy, bare-chested with tattoos on his back. Both human and slightly bestial in the face, he has a nose sprouting a grotesque appendage of unknown function. If “Rosie” is a perfectly acceptable Irish nickname for a boy, carrying it must nonetheless encourage a certain toughness to succeed.

Credit

The Bill McClain Collection of Chicago Imagism
Madison Museum of Contemporary Art