RAiR | 1969-71
Willard Midgette †
Willard “Bill” Midgette (1937-1978) was born in Baltimore, Maryland and spent most of his later life in Brooklyn, New York interspersed with a few years in New Mexico. He attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Harvard College, Boston University College of Fine Arts, the Pratt Institute and lastly Indiana University where he attained his MFA in 1962. Bill was an Associate Professor of Art at Reed College in 1963-1971. From 1971 until his death, Bill taught and chaired the art department of St Ann’s School in Brooklyn and taught at Skowhegan in the summers of 1976 and ‘77.
Bill is perhaps best remembered for his vibrant, mural-sized works of New York City and those depicting life among the Navajo. He is a late example of the American Scene School of painters that included Reginald Marsh, Isabel Bishop and Raphael Soyer. In 1969 Midgette along with his family came west to Roswell to paint a mural for Don Anderson as part of what was to become the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program. Later, Midgette spent time in the Navajo Nation out of which grew work included in the Interior Department's touring exhibition America 1976. Among other works produced as part of this project are 'Sitting Bull Returns' at the Drive-in, now in the Smithsonian, and Pow-Wow at the Roswell Museum and Art Center. Studies for both are here on view.
Sketches and preparatory works have long served figurative artists as a means of compositional organization and creative speculation. These loose images, whether in pencil, pastel or paint, are a window into the consciousness of the artist and are often delightful works in their own right.
Always a tough-minded representational artist, Midgette could also be playful with his illusionism. By thrusting his figures up against the picture plane and the edges of his working surface, he pushes them into the viewer's own space. Fascinated with the works of Annibale Carracci, Midgette employed mirrors and paintings within paintings as a means of inviting the viewer into a deeper examination of the nature of illusion and reality.
AMoCA Collection: Porch, 1967, Oil on Linen, 77.75 x 98 in.