Wildeworld

by Theodore F. Wolff

"The work and nearly sixty-year career of John Wilde are an anomaly, inspired by the art of the early Flemish, German, and Italian Renaissance. Wilde has revived the traditional technique of silverpoint drawing, while his exquisitely crafted paintings, featuring jewel-like color, present a precisely rendered representational world. But Wilde's world is a cross between the Garden of Eden and Alice's Wonderland, subversive yet innocent, fancifully sardonic and impishly witty. Here are nudes and figure compositions; still lifes of flowers, vegetables, and fruit; self-portraits; and studies of birds and animals." "Wildeworld presents thirty-seven drawings and seventy-seven paintings by Wilde covering the period from 1941 through 1998. They are accompanied by a charming essay by Theodore F. Wolff combining personal reminiscence dating back fifty years with analysis of the artist's iconography and technique as a draftsman and painter."--BOOK JACKET.