John Wilde
| John Wilde | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 12, 1919 Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Died | March 9, 2006 (aged 86) Evansville, Wisconsin |
| Nationality | U.S. citizen |
| Other names | John Henry Wilde, John H. Wilde |
| Occupation | Artist, educator |
| Known for | Oil paintings, pencil, pencil and wash, and silver point drawings, prints; associated with Surrealism and Magic Realism in the U.S. |
John Wilde (December 12, 1919 – March 9, 2006, pronounced "WILL-dee") was a painter, draughtsman and printmaker of fantastic imagery. Born near 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, where he taught for some 35 years. Wilde was associated with the Magic Realism movement and Surrealism 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.
The youngest of three boys born to Emil and Mathilda Wilde, John Henry Wilde was born near Milwaukee, Wisconsin on December 12, 1919. As a youth he met Karl Priebe (1914–1976) who later became Wilde's colleague in art and a life-long friend. While in high school Wilde visited the Milwaukee studios of Santos Zingale (1908–1999) and Alfred Sessler (1901–1963) 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). As an undergraduate in art at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Wilde met the artist Marshall Glasier (1902–1989). 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. According to Wilde, Glasier became “the hub of—the catalyst for—the most exciting art event Madison had experienced…” 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” 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. 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. Wilde also met and married fellow art student Helen Ashman (1919–1966) in 1942. The group of friends often met at Karl Priebe's studio in Milwaukee and frequented the Chicago home of Gertrude Abercrombie, whose gatherings of artists and jazz musicians were legendary.
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