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John Wilde

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For other people named John Wilde, see John Wilde (disambiguation).

John Wilde (1919-2006) was a painter, draughtsman and printmaker of fantastic imagery. Born in Milwaukee, Wilde lived most of his life in Wisconsin, save for service in the U.S. Army during World War II. He received bachelor and master degrees in art from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Wilde was associated with the Magic Realism movement in the United States. His darkly humorous figurative imagery often included self-portraits through which he interacted with the people, animals and surreal objects that populate his fantasy world.[1]

John Wilde
BornDecember 12, 1919
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
DiedJune 9, 2006
Evansville, Wisconsin
NationalityU.S. citizen
Other namesJohn Henry Wilde, John H. Wilde
Occupation(s)Artist, educator
Known forOil paintings, silver point drawings, prints; associated with Magic Realism in the U.S.

Early influences

The youngest of three boys born to Emil and Mathilda Wilde, John Henry Wilde (pronounced WILL-dee) was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on December 12, 1919. As a child he met Karl Priebe (1914–1976) who become Wilde's colleague in art and a life-long friend. While in high school Wilde visited the Milwaukee studios of Santos Zingale (1908–1999)[2] and Alfred Sessler (1901-1963)[3] and realized that his own talent for drawing could lead to a viable career. Soon after this he began informal study with Milwaukee painter Paul Clemens (1911–1992).[4] As an undergraduate in art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wilde met the artist Marshall Glasier (1902–1989).[5] In the late 1930s Glasier studied at the Art Students League but found it difficult in Depression-era New York to make his way an artist. He returned to the home of his youth in Madison, where he lived with his parents for the next twenty years, setting up his art studio in the attic of their house.[6] According to Wilde, Glasier became “the hub of—the catalyst for—the most exciting art event Madison had experienced…”[7] Although Glasier was not connected with the university, the casual salons he regularly hosted at his parents’ home where a gathering place for students, faculty and “other Madison personalities”[8] who wanted to discuss contemporary literature, art and music. Glazier and the young artists in his circle rejected the American Regionalist painting of the day, which was exemplified by the work of John Steuart Curry, who was artist-in-residence at the University of Wisconsin from 1936 to 1946.[9] The dissenters coalesced into a loosely organized group that included Glasier, Wilde, Sylvia Fein (b. 1919) and Dudley Huppler (1917–1988) in Madison, Wisconsin; Karl Priebe (1914–1976) in Milwaukee and Gertrude Abercrombie (1909–1977) in Chicago.[10] Wilde also met and married fellow art student Helen Ashman (1919–1966) in 1942.[11] The group of friends often met at Karl Priebe's studio in Milwaukee and frequented visited at the Chicago home of Gertrude Abercrombie, whose gatherings of artists and jazz musicians were legendary.[12]

Another influence on Wilde’s early career was an art professor at the University of Wisconsin, James S. Watrous (1908–1999). A draughtsman, muralist, mosaicist and art historian, Watrous taught ‘old master’ methods of drawing and painting using the materials and techniques of European painting and drawing from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. He taught his students how to make their own inks, chalks and crayons from materials found in nature, how to craft reed and quill pens and how to prepare grounds for metal point drawing,[13] including silver point, the medium in which Wilde became a modern master.[14] Wilde took Watrous's lessons to heart, poring over recipes for oil mediums and eventually formulating a secret mixture for use in his own work.[15]

War time journal

Wilde received his bachelor of science degree in 1942 and was drafted into the US Army shortly thereafter. He served with the Infantry Air Force and the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). As an artist he was assigned to produce drawings for the army venereal disease program and maps and terrain models for intelligence.[16] During this time he kept a private journal that he filled with self-portraits, fantastic and macabre scenes and written reflections on the Army, an institution he despised for its regimentation and bureaucracy. In the journal’s pictures and words, Wilde also documented his increasing feeling of hopelessness as his term of service stretched into years. In spite of his deepening depression, Wilde saw broader artistic possibilities in some of his journal sketches, working them up into larger drawings that he mailed to Dudley Huppler in Wisconsin.[17] According to art historian Robert Cozzolino, in his later career Wilde returned "dozens of times" to the unsetting themes and situations that he first explored in his wartime journal.[18] Upon discharge from the Army in 1946, Wilde returned to the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he studied art history, graduating with a master of science degree from the School of Education. His thesis was ostensibly about the Surrealist artist Max Ernst, but Wilde later admitted that the thesis was primarily a statement of protest against Abstract Expressionism.[19]

Mature work

Drawing was Wilde’s boyhood means of visual expression and it remained the foundation on which the works of his sixty-year professional career were built. Wilde’s self-described “deep instinctive love of drawing” was a source of puzzlement to him; as a child he was not encouraged in it, nor could he see anything in his social or cultural environment that led to it.[20] He did, however, have a deep interest in and empathy for nature and its cycle of generation, growth, decay and death. Vegetables, plants and flowers, both wild and cultivated and animals, especially birds, are the subjects of many of his paintings. Human beings enter his paintings, too, often nude, and often of the female sex. Writer Donna Gold described Wilde’s tendency to marry nature to the human figure in improbable ways in his painting, “To Make Strawberry Jam”:

“Wilde… paints an odalisque wrapped in tendrils of a strawberry plant, echoing Botticelli’s ‘The Birth of Venus’, veiled in her golden hair. A strawberry is what covers Wilde’s woman, but the strawberry she hugs to her breast is huge, half the size of her torso.”

The reference to the Renaissance painter Botticelli is apt. The art historical painting and drawing techniques that Wilde learned in James Watrous’s seminars give his work the look of something from fifteenth century Italy. But, according to curator Sara Krajewski,

“Surrealism best enables [Wilde] to represent the mind’s activity and the pervasive forces of sex and death. Bones, dead animals and scenes of decay serve as memento mori, symbolic reminders of one’s mortality. Naked women or or strangely mutated women-creatures populate deep, dream-like landscapes. Frequently Wilde paints himself into a scene, as if to acknowledge that this is a world where he confronts his own fears and desires.”[21]

An early example of Wilde putting himself into his painting is “Wisconsin Wildeworld,” subtitled “Provincia, Naturlica and Classicum” in the collection of the Milwaukee Art Museum.[22] The 52 inch wide painting shows the artist, his turned back toward the viewer, gazing into the distance to his right at a fanciful, Renaissance-inspired landscape. The artist’s right arm is extended to measure the pointy-topped mountains ahead of him; in his left arm he cradles a drawing board. Classical ruins jut into the scene from the picture’s right edge. It seems perfectly normal to see the small figures of naked women cavorting among them. The artist’s figure forms a sort of magical border between this world and a more mundane reality. To his proxy’s left, Wilde laid out the staid lines of a small town residential avenue, complete with elderly frame houses and a tree-lined walk along which fully-clothed Midwesterners stroll.

Teaching

Wilde taught drawing at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1948 until his retirement in 1982 as the Alfred Sessler Distinguished Professor of Art.[23] He was one of a number of influential artists who began to teach at the University after the war, including the printmakers Alfred Sessler (1909–1963) and Warrington Colescott (b. 1921) and the glass artist Harvey Littleton (b. 1922).[24] Aaron Bohrod (1907–1992) took over John Steuart Curry's position as artist-in-residence at the university in 1948, continuing in the position until 1978. Although he began his career as an urban regionalist, by 1954 Bohrod was firmly associated with magic realism for his trompe l'oeil still lifes.[25] Three of Wilde's notable students are book illustrator Nancy Ekholm Burkert (b.1933); contemporary artist Bruce Nauman (b. 1941)[26] and Wynn Chamberlain (b. 1929),[27] a magic realist painter and a producer and director of erotic films.[28]

Artistic Collaborations

 
John Wilde, 7 Kiefers, 1987. Printed at Mantegna Press by Warrington Colescott

Wilde gained an important artistic collaborator in 1966 when book artist Walter Hamady joined the art department faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Under the imprimatur of his own Perishable Press (founded in 1964), Hamady worked with a number of contemporary writers and artists to create editions that are "literary, visual, typographic and aethetic exploration[s] of the potential of the book."[29] Books on which Wilde worked with Hamady include "John's Apples" (1995, with poems by Reeve Lindberg, edition of 125); "Nineteen Eighty-five: The Twelve Months" (1992, edition of 130); "What his mother's son hath wrought: twenty-four representative paintings with excerpts from notebooks kept on and off between the years 1940–1988" (1988, edition of 1,000); "44 Wilde 1944: being a selection of 44 images kept by John Wilde mostly in 1944"(1984) and "The story of Jane and Joan" (1979).

Warrington Colescott collaborated with Wilde on several occasions. In 1985 Colescott printed two large color etchings by Wilde at Colescott's Mantegna Press in Hollandale, Wisconsin, Titled "7 Kiefers" and "8 Russets" (both are editions of 100) the prints depict groups of plump pears and green apples.[30]

Wilde also collaborated with Harvey Littleton and Littleton Studios[31] to create three vitreograph prints. Wilde's vitreographs "The Kiss" (Edition of 20) and "Portrait of Joan" were created in 1996; his "Three Trees" (Edition of 16) was created in 1998.[32]

The Tandem Press at the University of Wisconsin–Madison was another collaborative venue for Wilde. In 1985 he took the opportunity to produce one lithograph in black ink on white paper there. "Wildeview II" measures 23 1/2 x 36 inches and was published in an edition of 90.[33]

Wilde worked with Andrew Balkin Editions of Madison, Wisconsin to produce "J. & J. Enter the Kingdom of Heaven," a color etching and aquatint that was part of the eleven artist portfolio, "AGB Encore." He later collaborated with the atelier on an aquatint and dry-point print with selective hand-coloring for the "Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Portfolio".[34]

Honors

Wilde was elected to the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences and Letters in 1982 and to the National Academy of Design in New York City in 1993.[35]

Public collections

Wilde's artwork is in the collections of museums throughout the United States, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.[36] In his home state of Wisconsin, Wilde is represented by work in the collections of the Chazen Museum of Art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Personal

John Wilde and his wife Helen had two children, Jonathan and Phoebe Wilde. After Helen's death in 1966, Wilde married the former Shirley Grilley. His stepchildren are Robert, Dorian and Rinalda Grilley.[37]

References

  1. ^ Ken Johnson, “John Wilde, 86 Painter of Surreal Comic Images,” Obituaries, The New York Times, Saturday, March 18, 2006.
  2. ^ Born in Milwaukee, Santos Zingale received his art training at the Milwaukee State Teacher's College (now the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee) and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where in 1943 he received a Master of Art Education. He joined the faculty of the art department there in 1946. When Wilde first met him in the 1930s, Zingale was working with [regionalism (art)|social realist] themes. (Bruce Breckenridge et al., "Memorial Resolution of the Faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison on the Death of Emeritus Professor Santos Zingale", UW–Madison Faculty Document 1492 - 3 April 2000
  3. ^ Wilde became Sessler's colleague in 1948 when Wilde joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison Art Department. In the 1930s Sessler worked in painting and drawing and was employed as a muralist by the Treasury Art Project (1935-37) and the [Federal Art Project] (1937-1942). He later became well known for his lithographs, etchings and woodcuts. (Luther College, Fine Arts Collection, "Alfred Sessler", [1] Accessed 3/12/09
  4. ^ Robert Cozzolino, "In Memoriam: John Wilde (1919–2006)", Wisconsin Visual Artists, Art in Wisconsin, 2006 [2] Accessed 3/12/09
  5. ^ The subject of Glasier’s paintings during his Wisconsin years (c. 1939–1956) were “...mythological, biblical, allegorical and fantasy figures in the incongruous landscapes of southwest Wisconsin.” Sara Krajewski, “Surreal Wisconsin: Surrealism and its Legacy of Wisconsin Art,” Madison Art Center, 1998 [3] Accessed 3/26/2003
  6. ^ John Wilde, “Marshall Glasier—A Personal Memoir,” The State: Wisconsin Academy Review, p.34 [4] Accessed 3/5/09
  7. ^ Wilde, [5] Accessed 3/5/09
  8. ^ Wilde, [6] Accessed 3/5/09
  9. ^ Krajewski, 1998
  10. ^ Krajewski, 1998
  11. ^ Cozzolino, 2006
  12. ^ Krajewski, 1998
  13. ^ James Watrous, The Craft of Old Master Drawing, Wisconsin University Press, April, 2002 ISBN 0-299-01425-8
  14. ^ Michael Duncan, “Heretics from the Heartland”, Art in America, February 2006
  15. ^ Cozzolino, 2006
  16. ^ David Becker and Jim Escalante, "Memorial Resolution of the Faculty of the University of Wisconsin–Madison on the Death of Professor John Wilde", UW–Madison Faculty Doc 1929, September 25, 2006
  17. ^ Duncan, 2006
  18. ^ Cozzolino, 2006
  19. ^ Cozzolino, 2006
  20. ^ Cozzolino, 2006
  21. ^ Krajewski, 1998
  22. ^ The artwork was created between November 14, 1953 and August 30, 1955. It is an oil on canvas, 32 ½ inches tall and 52 inches wide. It was given to the Milwaukee Art Museum by Mr. and Mrs. Fitzhugh Scott through Northwoods Foundation
  23. ^ The university's board of regents awarded him that honor in 1968. Beckner and Escalante, 2006
  24. ^ Sessler taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison from 1945 until his death in 1963; Colescott from 1949 until his retirement in 1986 and Harvey Littleton from 1952 until his retirement in 1976
  25. ^ Faith B. Miracle, Wisconsin Academy Review, Winter 1995–96 p.18 [7] Accessed 3/17/09
  26. ^ Cozzolino, 2006
  27. ^ Cozzolino, 2006
  28. ^ Time Magazine, "Conversations of the New Eroticism," July 11, 1969
  29. ^ Warrington Colescott, "Progressive Printmakers: Wisconsin Artists and the Print Renaissance", The University of Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin 1999 p. 101 ISBN: 0-299-1611-2
  30. ^ Frances Myers and Warrington Colescott donated eight prints of "8 Russets" and Wilde's preliminary drawing for the print to the Milwaukee Art Museum in 2007. Milwaukee Art Museum, Annual Report, Acquisitions, 1997
  31. ^ Littleton Studios is located in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, where Harvey Littleton established his hot glass shop and a printmaking atelier in the late 1970s.
  32. ^ Images of the prints can be seen at [8] Accessed 4/01/09
  33. ^ One of the prints from the edition is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. [9] Accessed 4/01/09
  34. ^ Images of the "AGB Encore" portfolio can be seen at [10] Accessed 4/01/09
  35. ^ Becker and Escalante, 2006
  36. ^ Spanierman Gallery, [11] Accessed 3/10/09
  37. ^ Becker and Escalante, 2006
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