Lot 289
Ben Wilson
New York, New Jersey, (1913-2001)
Haiku 50, 1985
oil on wood panel
Signed, dated and titled verso.
Biography from the Archives of askART: Ben Wilson (June 23, 1913-November 9, 2001) was an American artist known for his early, expressionistic and figurative paintings from the mid 1930s to the mid 1950s and his subsequent non-objective paintings, a personal synthesis of Abstract Expressionism and Constructivism. He is generally considered a second-generation Abstract Expressionist.
Ben Wilson was born in Philadelphia to Jewish parents who had emigrated from the Ukrainian city of Kiev and who settled in New York City. He was educated in New York City public schools and graduated from the College of the City of New York (CCNY) with a BSS in 1935. Wilson also attended classes at the National Academy of Design and the Educational Alliance during his college years.
Wilson began exhibiting shortly after graduating from college and rented his first studio with fellow CCNY students in Chelsea. He survived the Depression teaching painting for the WPA (the New Deal's Work Projects Administration). One of the youngest artists to show at the A.C.A. Gallery in 1940 and with the Bombshell Group at the Riverside Museum in 1942, Wilson was singled out as a "discovery" by New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewell. His first one-man show was in 1946 at the Gallery Neuf, and his work—expressionistically rendered Biblical parables--was much admired by the critics for its depth, sincerity, and vehement social protest. His earliest works reflect an acute awareness of the agony of the times, from the Spanish Civil War to the Holocaust.
Influenced by Cubism, the Russian Constructivists, Mondrian, and Abstract Expressionism, Wilson gradually moved away from figurative imagery in the mid 50's. After a relatively brief transitional period during which he searched for what he called "a scaffolding under the externals," he fully embraced abstraction and from the mid 60's on became increasingly experimental in his materials and method, working his paintings from all directions and incorporating dripping, spraying, stenciling and collage. While he continued to explore unusual color harmonics, his primary focus was on compositional variations and a multilayered development of space. He experimented particularly with elements of disjunction, repetitions of geometric motifs, linear networks, and complex overlays that yield a sense of transparency.
Always a consummate draftsman, Wilson filled notebook after notebook with drawings that he later amplified in his paintings. In the 80's his Haikus, done on wood panels or masonite with inks, paints, and gritty texturing materials, grew into an extensive series, which, given Wilson's typically robust style, are noteworthy for their subtle pastel palette and poetic quality.
For four decades, from the 40's through the 80's, Wilson taught painting privately. He also helped organize two artists' groups (MAG [Modern Artists' Guild] and Vectors) for purposes of cooperative exhibiting. Widely exhibited, with more than 30 solo exhibitions, Wilson received numerous awards including a Ford Foundation artist-in-residency grant.
His work is in such public collections as the Newark Museum, Allentown Museum, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum, Bergen Museum of Arts and Science; Everson Museum, Everhart Museum, Norfolk Museum, Hunterdon Museum of Art, New Jersey State Museum, as well as in many university collections. A portion of Wilson's archives—30's and 40's-- is in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art. Montclair State University, in Montclair, NJ, permanently houses his art estate, that of his sculptor wife, Evelyn Wilson, and the remainder of his archives.
Education:
The College of the City of New York (CCNY), BSS 1935, honors with Professor George William Eggers
National Academy of Design, Educational Alliance, Academie Julian
Awards and Recognition:
Ford Foundation Grant: Artist-in-Residence in Museums
Emily Lowe Memorial Award, Audubon Artists
Publications:
Who Was Who in American Art, 1564-1975,
Who's Who in Art;
Who's Who in the East;
Dictionary of International Biography;
American Artists of Renown,
Enciclopedia Internatzionale Degli Artisti, 1970/71, "J'ai vu vivre l'Amerique, de New York a Hollywood," Georges Blond, Librarie Artheme Fayard, 1957, pages 307, 308-310
Author "Cobra," Artist's Proof l966
Art Critic TAO l975-76.
Source:
Information, provided February 2016 by David H. Graham, Director of Development in the College of Arts of Montclair State University.
The Ben and Evelyn Wilson Foundation donated his estate to Montclair State University in 2012, now the permanent home for his artwork and archives.
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Dimensions:
- 9"H x 13 3/4"W (sight), 14 1/4"H x 19 1/8"W (frame) Artist Name:
- Ben Wilson Medium:
- oil on wood panel
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