About Ben Wilson
Ben Wilson (1913-2001) was an abstract expressionist painter whose work was exhibited frequently from the mid-thirties through the sixties, and less frequently but consistently through the rest of the century. He began exhibiting shortly after graduating from City College in 1935. (He also attended the National Academy of Design and the Master’s Institute.) He rented his first studio with fellow students in Chelsea, and survived the Depression with the help of the WPA.
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 by the New York Times art critic Edward Alden Jewell as a “discovery.” His first one-man show was in 1946 at the Gallery Neuf, and his work—expressionistically rendered Biblical parables reminiscent of Max Beckmann--was much admired by the critics for its sincerity and “vehement social protest.” Filled with what he called “the grief of the intolerable,” his earliest works reflect an acute awareness of the agony of the time, from the Spanish Civil War to the Holocaust.
Influenced by Cubism, in the forties and fifties Wilson evolved a vocabulary of interlocking shapes and bold, sweeping gestures that served as a transition between his early figurative expressionism and his later more abstract constructivist concerns. By the late fifties, he was at a crossroad, moving towards abstraction and searching for what he called “a scaffolding under the externals.” At this time he created a series of large, powerful paintings—perhaps his most heroic—where figure and structure, emotion and rationality are held in a razor-edge balance.
Through the sixties, completing the transition to abstraction, Wilson exhibited in New York and Paris and received a Ford Foundation artist-in-residence grant. As the decade progressed, he became increasingly experimental, using house paint, sand, and other unorthodox materials in paintings that he worked with gusto--right side up, upside down, and sideways, dripping, spraying, stenciling, and collaging. In the following years he explored unusual color harmonics and perfected his keen sense of composition. He intensified his experimentation, employing elements of disjunction, repetitions of geometric motifs, linear networks, and complex overlays for a multilayered development of space. His work from the seventies on brings to mind electronics layout boards and anticipates today’s computer-generated graphic techniques.
Always a consummate draftsman, Wilson filled notebook after notebook with drawings that he later amplified in his paintings. In the eighties 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 remarkable for their subtle pastel palette and gentle, poetic quality.
Ever one to pursue a personal aesthetic path regardless of popular movements and critical reactions, Wilson increasingly withdrew from the New York art gallery scene from the seventies on. Thereafter, he showed more often in New Jersey, where he resided with his sculptor wife, Evelyn Wilson, and in Florida, where the couple wintered.
For four decades, from the forties through the eighties, Wilson taught painting privately in his studio, and from time to time for institutions such as New York University School of General Education (1962-68). He also helped organize two artists’ groups (MAG [Modern Artists’ Guild] and Vectors) for purposes of cooperative exhibiting.
Throughout his life Wilson painted and drew every day. He left behind a large body of work and an extensive archive-- including exhibition catalogues, reviews, and correspondence-- that are currently stored in his studio, adjacent to the Wilson’s pre-Revolutionary stone house in Blairstown, New Jersey.
Ben Wilson is listed in Who's Who in Art; Who's Who in the East; Dictionary of International Biography; American Artists of Renown and International Encyclopedia of Artists. His work is in such public collections as Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum, New York, NY; Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum, New Brunswick, NJ; Rutgers University Art Library and Classics Department, New Brunswick, NJ; Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa; Everhart Museum, Scranton, Pa; Norfolk Museum, Norfolk, Va; Fairleigh Dickenson University Collection of Self-Portraits, NJ. A portion of his archives are in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.
Fifty-Plus Years of Critical Comments
“If there has been more earnest and emotional painting shown this season than the somber canvases by Ben Wilson at Galerie Neuf, it has escaped my attention.”
Howard Devree, art critic
New York Times, Nov. 17, 1946
“In the plethora of exhibitions which crowd the New York art calendar, now and then a painter stands out and the spectator says to himself, “Here is a painter to watch.” Ben Wilson is such a painter . . . Ben Wilson cannot be categorized or placed within any school of painting. Beginning as an academician, becoming in turn an impressionist, cubist, neo-romantic and finally expressionist, he has discarded all schools, and starting from scratch, sought and found a new and personal way of saying what he has to say. His work is the product of years of concentrated activity and passionate devotion to his art.”
Martin Silver, art critic
The American Hebrew, Nov. 1, 1946
“Of contemporary painters, the work of Ben Wilson is exceptional in its profound and revealing understanding of the great truths of our time. Here the contradictions, the distortions, the misery, the incomplete victory, the groping of our epoch are strongly mirrored. The freedom with which Wilson establishes new and original forms and treatment to tell us of these things is a testament to his tremendous ability as an artist.”
Alfredo Valente, art critic
Promenade, Nov., 1946
“The work of Ben Wilson . . . is imbued with considerable mysticism. It is somber if occasionally ecstatic and whether in the dramatic “Security,” with its surging hopelessness, or in the more tender “Temple in the Desert,” “Boy,” or “Annunciation,” the low key of the coloring and soft rhythms surround everything with a hushed atmosphere. These are pungent and sensitive works.”
New York Herald Tribune
Mar. 22, 1949
“Intensity, white-hot intensity in a deep spirit, marks the work of Ben Wilson at the Artists Gallery . . . For a painter born no farther distant than Philadelphia, this work is amazingly universal in feeling.”
M.L., art reviewer
Art Digest, Mar. 15, 1949
“A highlight of the Riverside Museum’s exhibition are Ben Wilson’s dry, wiry abstractions.”
Dore Ashton, art critic
New York Times, 1950
“Poetic content of a more turgid, more expressionistic order is to be found in Ben Wilson’s new paintings at the Salpeter Gallery, 42 East Fifty-seventh Street. In these crowded dark canvases, Biblical and mythical themes are treated reverently. Distortion and jaggedness of form add future to the strained emotional mood set here, which hints that, though the struggle little availeth, individual heroic acts are worth performing.”
New York Times
Apr. 22, 1955
“While Wilson’s serious message is evident in almost every painting he exhibits . . .his concern for modern structure and semi-abstract form in design is equally, if not considerably more, apparent to the observer.”
Carlyle Burrows, art critic,
Herald Tribune, Oct. 13, 1957
“The ingenuity of arrangement and skill of brushwork give these canvases a compelling effect.”
Margaret Bruening, writer
Arts (incorporating Art Digest), Oct. 1957
“One of the new season’s best and most thought provoking exhibitions.”
John Lenson, art critic
The Newark Sunday News, Sept. 22, 1957
“Although the names Mario Garcia, Albert Kotin and Ben Wilson might not set off any immediate bells, they typify the abstract expressionist genre as well as point up the fact that the movement’s vocabulary was far from monolithic . . . Ben Wilson’s large canvases, while still within the abstract expressionist mode, retain echoes of Picasso, Braque, and even mechanistic elements of Fernand Leger . . .. Although Abstract Expressionism as a movement has apparently been relegated to art history texts, its impact remains strikingly immediate.”
Princeton Art Review
Apr. 1987
“Ben Wilson’s “River of Time” in its composition, color and technical virtuosity is a paradigm of a historical style still capable of evoking fresh emotion.”
Kevin Dean, art critic
Longboat Observer, 1993
“Some of Wilson’s most energetic expressionist work has been executed in the last few years and it is this work that Lyra Gallery will be exhibiting. Make an effort to see it—Wilson’s cryptic work invited deciphering and comprehension. This is one show not to be missed.”
Sarasota Arts Review
Mar. 1996
“Ben Wilson’s works are essays in paint. He studied in Paris and New York. He absorbed the lessons of the Cubists, the Surrealists and Abstract painters of the 20th century, and then he created his own vocabulary that pays homage to no one in particular. Ben’s paintings are about the process of painting. He creates a structure of paint with strokes as he builds up layers. The end result is an exceedingly pleasing, arresting and then absorbing surface for us to ponder.
Mark Ormond, art critic
Pelican Press (Sarasota, FL). May 23, 2002
Exhibitions & Collections
1913-2001
EDUCATION:
National Academy of Design, l930-33
College of the City of New York, B.S.S., 1935
Masters Institute, 1933
Academie Julien, Paris, 1953-54
SELECTED ONE-PERSON EXHIBITIONS:
1946 Galerie Neuf, New York, N.Y.
1948 Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.
1949 Artists Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1950 Salpeter Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1952 Salpeter Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1955 Salpeter Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1957 Salpeter Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1959 Highgate Gallery, Upper Montclair, N.J.
1960 Galerie A.G., Paris, France
1964 Granite Gallery, New York, N.Y.
1965 Everhart Museum, Scranton, Pa.
1966 Spectrum Gallery, New York, N.Y.
Bloomfield College Gallery, Bloomfield, N.J.
1974 Bergen Community Museum, Paramus, N.J.
1979 Centenary College, Hackettstown, N.J.
1987 Blair Academy, Blairstown, N.J.
1989 New College, University of South Florida, Sarasota, Fl.
1990 Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, New York, N.Y.
1991 The Salon Fine Arts Gallery, Longboat Key, Fl.
1993 Lyra Gallery, Sarasota, Fl.
1996 Millhouse Bundy Gallery, Waitsfield, Vt.
1996 Lyra Gallery, Sarasota, Fl.
1997 Millstone Gallery, Palm Beach, Fl.
1999 Miramar Gallery, Sarasota, Fl.
2002 Selby Gallery, Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, Fl. (posthumous)
Romano Gallery, Blair Academy, Blairstown, N.J. (posthumous)
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
1934 Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, N.Y.
1936 A.C.A. Gallery, New York, NY, first annual exhibition of A.C.A. Gallery
1940 A.C.A. Gallery, New York, NY
1942 Bombshell Group, Riverside Museum, New York, N.Y.
1955 Pennsylvania Academy, Philadelphia, Pa.
1956 Pepsi Cola Traveling Exhibition (Corcoran Gallery of Art, Albright Art Gallery, Cleveland Museum of Art, Fine Art Gallery of Chicago, Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, Philadelphia Art Alliance)
1958,’59,’61,’63 Montclair Museum, Montclair, N.J.
Knapik Gallery, NYC, N.Y.
1965,’66 New Jersey Pavilion of the New York World's Fair
1985,’86 Foster Harmon Galleries, Sarasota, Fl.
Gary Snyder Fine Arts, Princeton, N.J.
1989 Cognizart Gallery, Sarasota, Fl.
1993, ’94 Lyra Gallery, Sarasota, Fl.
1998 Miramar Art Gallery, Sarasota, Fl.
Stanford Fine Art Gallery, Sarasota, Fl.
1999 Millstone-Bundy Fine Arts, St. Louis, Mo.
1999 Millstone Gallery, Palm Beach, Fl.
AWARDS:
1931 Sydenham Silver Medal for drawing, National Academy of Design, N.Y.
1933 Steers Prize, College of the City of New York, for general excellence in art
1934 Winner of New York city-wide competition of Masters Institute
1935 Honors courses with Professor Eggers, College of the City of New York
1958 Skinner Award, 2nd prize in drawing, Montclair Museum, Montclair, N.J.
1959 Agnes B. Noyes Award, 1st prize in watercolors, Montclair Museum, Montclair, NJ
1963 Skinner Award for Abstract Oils, Montclair Museum, Montclair, N.J.
1965 Ford Foundation Grant, Artists in Residence in Museums, Everhart Museum,
Scranton, Pa.
1989, ’93, Best of Show Award, Venice Art Center, Venice, Fl.
1993 Commissioner's Award, Longboat Key Art Center, Longboat Key, Fl.
SELECTED MUSEUM AND UNIVERSITY COLLECTIONS:
Bergen Museum of Arts and Science, Paramus, NJ
Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pa
Everhart Museum, Scranton, Pa.
Everson Museum, Syracuse, NY
Fairleigh Dickenson University Collection of Self-Portraits
Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion Museum, New York, NY
Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ
Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Museum, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Jersey City Museum, Jersey City, NJ
New Jersey State Museum, Trenton, NJ
Norfolk Museum, Norfolk, Va.
Rutgers University Art Library, New Brunswick, NJ
Rutgers University Classics Department, New Brunswick, NJ
Stedman Art Gallery, Rutgers U-Camden, Camden, NJ
William Paterson University, Paterson, NJ
TEACHING:
1936-83 Private studio classes (students included Janet Sobel)
1937-39 Queensboro Art Center
1938-40 American Artists School painting and drawing classes
1946-47 City College, painting and drawing classes
1946-48 American Artists School, watercolor painting classes (students included Elaine de Kooning)
l950 Jamesine Franklin School of Art, painting classes
l962-68 New York University , lectures in modern art
PUBLICATIONS:
Author "Cobra,” Artist's Proof l966
Art Critic TAO l975-76.
LISTED IN
Who's Who in Art; Who's Who in the East; Dictionary of International Biography; American Artists of Renown; International Encyclopedia of Artists
ARCHIVED:
Papers and letters of the ’30s and ’40s included in the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution;
full archive housed in Blairstown, NJ
Ben Wilson (American 1913-2001)
