WOLFS is pleased to present this exhibition featuring works from the artist’s estate including the debut of the Wilcox Western Collection.
Known as “the Dean of Artists,” Frank Wilcox (1887-1964) was a graduate of the Cleveland School of Art in 1910 and began his legendary teaching career at the Institute in 1913. As a student of Henry Keller and a teacher to Charles Burchfield, Clarence Carter, Carl Gaertner, and Paul Travis, among others, Wilcox grew to become one of the foremost leaders in the development of the Cleveland School.
Not only was Wilcox a masterful artist and nationally renowned watercolorist, but a historian, scientist and author as well, leaving an estate rich with artwork, publications, journals and sketchbooks. WOLFS is honored to be representing the Wilcox estate and proudly presents the second exhibition, featuring many fine works completed throughout his long and prolific career.
As a professor, Wilcox was able to use his lengthy vacation time traveling extensively throughout the United States, Europe, and parts of Canada sketching endlessly, becoming a chronicler of all he saw.
Beginning in 1937, Wilcox made numerous long excursions throughout the American West, resulting in voluminous sketches and paintings of western life, a collection virtually unseen until now. So vibrant and real are these many works when hung together, one needs to shade their eyes.
"My biggest thrill came when, somewhat east of Cheyenne, we saw the serrated distant peaks of the Rockies filling the whole western half of the horizon - a pale blue edge to the earth seen in the blinding light of sunset. For the first time, I saw a whole city lying like but a small dark patch in a wide basin, with the shadows of the foothills reaching towards it and the peaks now larger and dark beyond." -Frank Nelson WIlcox
CLICK TO VIEW THE WORKS IN THIS EXHIBITION
The Dean: Frank Nelson Wilcox, A Retrospective - 2019 Exhibition Catalog
