William T. Wiley

William T. Wiley began making art when abstract expressionism ruled the art world; over the course of his career he rejected minimalism, conceptual art, and other trends. Instead, he made his way by developing a style all his own. His irreverent art can seem spontaneous and offhand, but Wiley was deeply committed to the overall meaning of each work. Robert Johnson, curator of Wiley’s 1996 show “Nothing Lost from the Original: William Wiley Looks at Art History” at San Francisco’s de Young Museum, wrote, “When you first see the works, you are struck by the artistry, the sheer beauty. Then, when you read them more, you start to realize that there’s a kind of deadly seriousness about the whole thing.” Because of his work’s thoughtfulness, and its distinctive balance of the personal and the political, eminent artists, including Bruce Nauman, his student at the University of California at Davis from 1962 to 1973, count him among their major influences.

Wiley's first solo exhibition was held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1960. Since then, his work has been brought into many collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the Stedelijk van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. He received a Purchase Prize from the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1968, a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004, and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Southern Graphics Art Council in 2005. The artist passed away on April 25, 2021.