David Franklin Routon, 88, of Lincoln, Nebraska, passed away October 26, 2020. David was born  December 6, 1931 in Jackson, Tennessee to Ralph and Hallie (Wheat) Routon.

David attended Montgomery Bell Academy from grade 8 though high school and graduated in 1949. He served as a marine in the Korean War before he went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts in studio art at Mexico City College and a Masters of Fine Arts in art practice at the University of Iowa with an emphasis in painting, and a secondary emphasis in print making. His career as an artist and art professor took him to Michigan State University, The State University of New York at Plattsburgh, the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and lastly the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. He retired in 1997 as Professor Emeritus.

David explored formal representational qualities that paid attention to harmonious image structure juxtaposed against psychological and intuitive ways of seeing and being. His work is characterized by lines and brush strokes that simultaneously reveal and erase the grid of imagery.

His interest in photography and film bleed into his artwork. He made painting and drawings of 1940 and 1950’s movie stills such as Fritz Lang’s The Ministry of Fear. His fascination with the composition and austerity of old American homestead photos is present in many of his drawings.

David is survived by his daughters Claudia Joan Routon, Anne Katherine Routon, and his grandson, Oliver David Tonkin.

_______________________________________________________________

In David’s own words:

I spent my childhood moving residency with my parents from one West Tennessee town to another. This nomadism arose from changes in my father’s employment assignments with the  State Highway Department. I remember two separate Paris TN residencies, the first before I started grade school and the second afterward. I did first and second grades in Memphis, third and fourth grades in Dyersburg and Union City, and fifth grade during the second sojourn in Paris.

The latter Paris residency occurred just before the beginning of U.S. participation in WW II precipitated by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

At that time Paris and Henry County were struck by a sudden change in their social and financial fabric. The U.S. government plunged an Army camp into the area, specifically onto the area of the traditional farm and home holdings of the Routon families. The government mandated the purchase of land, including that of Routon owners, to become the site of Camp Tyson.

Camp Tyson was apparently one of only two installations in the United States devoted to the training of troops to handle barrage balloons. At that time there was a fear that Japanese or German planes might attack the United States mainland. Barrage balloons were non-propelled lighter-than-air fixtures meant to hang in the air above target sites to fend off enemy bombing attacks. Shortly thereafter the authorities concluded that that danger did not exist, so Tyson was shut down just as abruptly as it was created, and the land returned to private ownership and to its original farming function. For some years thereafter the former site of Camp Tyson was a lonely grid of blacktop roads surrounded by crops. One of the last remnants of Tyson’s existence is in the name of one road at “Routon.”

In the frenzy of the camp’s creation and brief operation, civilian life was disrupted in Paris and Henry County. Part of that disruption was productive: many people found more prosperous than usual employment. Because of the housing shortage precipitated by the camp’s intrusion, my parents and I shared our Paris house for a while with a pleasant, taciturn army colonel.

In the summer of 1941, my parents and I moved to Nashville, TN. Turning 10-years-of-age the day before the Dec. 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, I spent my teen years in Nashville, graduating from high school in 1949. Next I spent two not very successful years in college, the first year at Cornell University and the second divided between the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and Vanderbilt in Nashville.

Noting the meagerness of my college accomplishments, I diagnosed the cause as lack of mental focus. So, in spring 1951 I temporarily abandoned my career in higher education, even though this step left me vulnerable to draft into military service.  During these years of the Korean conflict college enrollment had provided deferment from military conscription for all draft-age college males. My inevitable induction into military obligation materialized about a year later.

In the year-long interval between this first college interval and military mobilization I lived for a few months in New York City. I supported myself with a dish-washing job and entertained myself with visits to art museums, art movies and concerts.

Military service extended from March 1952 through Feb. 1954. Though on active duty during armed conflict, I saw no combat. I spent most of my service time at a base in North Carolina. But toward its end, I did enjoy the benefit of a seven-month stay in Japan.

After separation from the military, I worked on a small-town daily newspaper. At that time, one could obtain such a post even without college journalistic training. My job was on the Radford (Virginia) News Journal. After a wobbly apprenticeship, I learned how to write news and feature stories fairly well and, after a while, was shooting and processing most of the photos for the paper’s local stories.

After about a year and three months at that job I ventured a second residency in New York City with the intent to break into documentary filmmaking. After a year and nine months of apprentice jobs with 16mm film producers interspersed with intervals of unemployment, I returned to college to study the practice of art.

I learned of an English-language college in Mexico, rated good enough academically to qualify as a venue for students receiving U.S. government financial aid available to veterans (the so-called G.I. Bill of Rights). In Sept. 1957 I entered that college, named Mexico City College, located near Mexico City. Like many of its students, I lived in Mexico City. During this interval I earned extra money in a part-time journalistic job at an English-language adjunct of a Mexico City newspaper. In Dec. 1959, after two years and three months of study, I obtained a BFA degree in studio art, mainly doing painting and drawing.

On my return to the United States, I resided in Nashville for about nine months. Part of that time I held another journalism job.

In fall of 1960 I began graduate work in art practice at the University of Iowa in Iowa City. In 1963 after three years study, I acquired an MFA (Masters of Fine Arts) degree in studio art with an emphasis in painting and a secondary emphasis in printmaking.

Upon graduation in August 1963, I launched a college teaching career with a one-year faculty appointment at Michigan State University in East Lansing. Next, I taught two years at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh.

In the meantime, I had married Carol Ann Theresa Wieck, whom I met when we were both students at Iowa. Carol was born June 27, 1936 in Jefferson, MO, and grew up in St. Louis. She took an undergraduate college degree at St. Louis University and an M.A. degree at the University of Iowa.

Our two daughters were born in Plattsburgh, New York, Claudia Sept 2 1964 and Anne April 19 1966.

In fall of 1966 my family and I migrated to Minneapolis where I taught at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis through 1972.

During the 1969-70 school year I was awarded a sabbatical leave which I, my wife, and our pre-school daughters spent in Europe. One outcome of that sojourn  was the break-up of the marriage. My wife ended up residing with the children in Spain, our last European residency during the leave.

After leaving the employ of the University of Minnesota at the end of 1972, I languished a few years in Minneapolis without a full-time job. In fall of 1976 I moved to Lincoln, Nebraska to take up a teaching appointment at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

In the years following the marital break-up, the children visited me regularly, first in Minneapolis, then in Lincoln. As each attained college age, they joined me in Lincoln to do their college work at the University of Nebraska. Anne arrived in 1985 and Claudia (along with husband Nick and infant son Oliver) in 1986. Anne obtained a BA with a double major in Math and English. Claudia got a BA and an MA in English and a PHD in Spanish Literature.

I retired from my teaching post in Spring 1997 at the age of 65 ½.

_______________________________________________________________

A private celebration of David’s life will be held virtually on 06 December 2020 at 9am PT/11am CT/12pm ET/5pm GMT/6pm CET.

Memorials to the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International.
 
Condolences online at davidroutonlegacy@gmail.com and GatheringUS memorial page.