Ulfert Wilke
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| Ulfert Wilke | |
| Born | 1907 Bavaria, Germany |
|---|---|
| Died | 1987 Anahola, Hawaii |
| Occupation | Calligrapher, art collector and painter |
Ulfert Wilke (1907-1987) was an internationally recognized painter, calligrapher and art collector connected to the abstract expressionism movement. He was born in Bavaria, Germany, and immigrated to the United States in 1938. He is best known for his large canvas paintings and highly detailed lithographs that were inspired by calligraphic writing. Wilke was deeply intrigued by the written language, and much of his work was derived from his abstract interpretation of the shapes, colors and meanings of writing that he found in all languages and forms, including the poetry and ancient engravings of Asia and the Middle East. He was an avid art collector, particularly of tribal art, and was the founding director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art.
Wilke studied art at Harvard on a Carnegie scholarship before being drafted into the US Army in 1942. In 1947, he completed his Masters degree in Art at the University of Iowa. Throughout the 40’s and 50’s, Wilke was an art teacher and director at several universities and museums. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship twice (in 1959 and 1960), which he used to travel to work and study first in Munich and Rome, and later Kyoto, Japan where he lived in monastery and studied Japanese Zen calligraphy under the monks.
Wilke returned to the US in the 1960’s. He lived in New York at this time and worked as a professor at Rutgers University. This period defined Wilke as an artist, and it was during this time that he became connected to the great New York school of artists of the 50’s and 60’s. He maintained close relationships with many famed artist colleagues including Ad Reinhardt, Julius Bissier, George Rickey, Mark Rothko, Lyonel Feininger, Max Beckmann, Mark Tobey, Kenzo Okada, Robert Motherwell and David Smith.
Wilke had many solo exhibitions throughout the United States and internationally, and was awarded many honors, including an exhibition and award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. A few of the many museums representing Wilke’s work today include the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Chicago Art Institute, Columbus Museum of Art, Dayton Museum of Art, Honolulu Academy of Arts, University of Iowa Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Stanford University Museum of Art.
[edit] References
- WilkeArts.com
- Wilke at The Galleries Downtown
- Nordland, Gerald (1983). Ulfert Wilke: A Retrospective. University of Utah Press.
- Müller-Yao, Marguerite Hui: Der Einfluß der Kunst der chinesischen Kalligraphie auf die westliche informelle Malerei, Diss. Bonn, Köln 1985. ISBN 3-88375-051-4
- Müller-Yao, Marguerite: Informelle Malerei und chinesische Kalligrafie, in: Informel, Begegnung und Wandel, (hrsg von Heinz Althöfer, Schriftenreihe des Museums am Ostwall; Bd. 2), Dortmund 2002, ISBN 3-611-01062-6
