Magic Circle 12-21-2012, 2012 - George Widener

Born in Ohio in 1962, George Widener has been hailed by New York Times critic Roberta Smith as a significant artistic discovery.

A self-taught artist and a calendar savant, Widener creates mixed-media works on paper that give aesthetic, visible form to complex calculations based on dates and historical events—the sinking of the Titanic is one of his favorites. The artist often uses found paper, or a support composed of layers of tea-stained paper napkins, to apply ink and paint upon. His drawings feature simple palettes, sophisticated patterning, and bold compositions of dates and imagery, which transcend centuries of time and the history of art. Widener sometimes likens himself to a “time traveler.”

George Widener is profiled in “Ingenious Minds: George Widener”, episode six of a six-part series of films focusing on savants and geniuses, which aired on the Science Discovery Channel in March, 2011. The artist is also a subject of the documentary film My Brilliant Brain: Accidental Genius, 2007. Widener’s life is the focus of a feature length film in production by Scott Ogden (director of MAKE), which is expected to premiere in the fall of 2011.

George Widener was most recently part of the exhibition World Transformers: The Art of the Outsiders, at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Germany, (September 24, 2010-January 9, 2011), and Exhibition 1 at the Museum of Everything (London, October 14 – December 23, 2009). Fourteen of his works were included in the exhibition Hiding Places: Memory in the Arts at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Sheboygan, Wisconsin (June 26-December 30,2011). George Widener also had an exhibition at the Galerie Suzanne Zander, Cologne in 2011, and Udo Kittelmann, Director of Berlin’s Nationalgalerie has organized an exhibition of George Widener’s work at the Hamburger Banhof Museum, Berlin, Germany in 2012.

Courtesy of Ricco/MarescaRead Less