Artwork Description
William T. Wiley – Little More Than Ideas
Dimensions: 27 x 22″ paper
Year: 1998
Medium: 3-color lithograph and woodcut
William Wiley’s Little More than Ideas lithograph was printed by Landfall Press. Wiley, 1937-2021, was an iconic artist. New York Times art critic Ken Johnson once said of William T. Wiley that “you might think he’d been invented by Thomas Pynchon.” Wiley was one of the founding fathers of West Coast Funk Art, alongside Robert Arneson, Roy Robert Hudson, and Roy DeForest. He rose to prominence in the 1970s with his offbeat representational style and narrative focus in painting, which was then in opposition to the widespread influence of Abstract Expressionism. Wiley’s works combined mystical iconography from Zen Buddhism, textual elements, regional aesthetics, humanist philosophy, and darkly funny commentary on politics, environmental issues, and global conflict. There is a recurring character in some of his works, a lanky figure with an awkward nose in a dunce cap and a bathrobe, named Mr. Unnatural. Wiley also creates drawings and assemblage sculpture. His works have been shown and collected by institutions such as San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), New Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, MCA Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art, and MoMA PS1, and The Dallas Museum of Art. This work is signed and numbered by the artist, and was printed by Landfall Press.