I’m attracted to pears known as Bartlett. Developed in the U.S. in the 1700s and all American to the core, it is fitting that much-acclaimed American artist John Wilde was around to paint the likes of them. His deft touch invites the thin-skinned darlings to let their sweetness drip down your chin.
It takes a great artist to pull this off, and with apologies to the decidedly “masculine” Bosc pear, I do believe that Wilde was a master of magic realism, though labels fail to fairly describe his particular brand of doing. Never Disney-like, he seemed to float beyond the silly and, like all serious thinkers, perhaps he found the meaning of life as simple as tasting the sweetness of it all. Of course he ventured beyond pears and into the realm of heavenly bodies, airborne figures and highly theatrical imaginings. He died at age 86 in the year 2006, and probably smiled from beyond when he read his obit in The New York Times. The world was indeed his stage. He was both actor and director.
Wilde is a perfect match with the Museum of Wisconsin Art. As we slip into summer, they offer “Wilde’s Wildes: A Very Private Collection,” plucked from the trove of this UW-Madison educator and his spouse, Shirley. According to Graeme Reid, the museum’s director of collections and exhibitions, at one time, early on in his long career, Wilde made topography maps for the military. Lucky for us, ultimately he mapped his own course. By the way, the aforementioned pears are part of the exhibition.
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Through Sept. 6 at Museum of Wisconsin Art, 205 Veterans Ave., West Bend. For more information, visit wisconsinart.org.
