Untitled (portrait paint brush head), Collection of Intuit, Gift of Dorianne and John Venator, 2010.9.2
Intuit is proud to announce the first Chicago retrospective for Mr. Imagination (Gregory Warmack, 1948-2012), a celebrated artist whose career spanned more than thirty years.
The third of nine children, Warmack was born in Chicago in 1948. Growing up on Chicago’s Southside, he spent his free time in his early years making jewelry, decorative objects and other small works from found objects for spending money. In 1978, he was mugged, shot and left to die. During his recovery he had an out of body experience that led him to dedicate himself to a new regenerative art for the people and began to call himself “Mr. Imagination.”
In the mid 1980s he had the first of many exhibitions at Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, IL, which lead to a series of exhibitions and commissions, including several House of Blues venues. Mr. Imagination quickly became a nationally recognized public artist. Following the death of his brother in 1997, Warmack moved in 2001 to Bethlehem, PA, where he continued to produce. In 2008, while he was working on a commission in Florida, Warmack’s home, gallery, collections and art studio were gutted by a fire. Following the fire, Warmack relocated to northwest Atlanta, GA. In his process to heal from the loss of his home and art, he began to incorporate the surviving burned pieces into new sculptures. Mr. Imagination passed away in May of 2012. READ MORE »
