Opening Tonight: Tom Huck's "Brutal Truths"

If you do one thing tonight, it should be to swing by the Saint Louis University Museum of Art to see the opening of Brutal Truths. It’s the first large-scale career retrospective for local printmaker Tom Huck, which is a little bit mind-blowing. Not just because Huck’s got fancy art credentials (he’s shown at the Whitney, etc.) but because he’s the real deal. Like the sort of real deal that only comes along a few dozen times in one generation. If you don’t know Huck’s stuff: he carves huge, elaborate woodblocks, which he may carve on for more than a year. He is best known for his elaborate scenes of mythologized events from his hometown of Potosi, Mo. (the image above is one example) but he also satirizes American culture in general. For instance: The Transformation of Brandy Baghead, the first tryptic in his newest series, “Booger Stew,” tells the story of a teenage beauty queen who has plastic surgery in order to become a chicken-woman in the pursuit of reality TV celebrity.

This show includes more than 45 works, including panels from “Brandy Baghead,” Huck’s newest tryptic, “The Tommy Peepers,” prints from some of his earliest series, including “Two Weeks in August,” and “14 Rural Absurdities,” and smaller-scale work made for BLAB! magazine. It’s also a rare chance to see Huck’s actual woodblocks, which hint at his influences (Durer, Posada) and will really give you a firsthand understanding of just how meticulously he works. That willingness to work slowly is a really unusual and wonderful thing these days, but even if you don’t give a toss about craftsmanship, Huck’s funny, intense and yeah, beautiful prints are worth a trip to Midtown for its own sake.