Jerry Oliver Wilkerson was a St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis, Missouri

St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...

 artist known for his contemporary pointillistic

Pointillism

Pointillism is a technique of painting in which small, distinct dots of pure color are applied in patterns to form an image. Georges Seurat developed the technique in 1886, branching from Impressionism. The term Pointillism was first coined by art critics in the late 1880s to ridicule the works...

 style of painting

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

, and as a supporter of local business and talent. After completing his BS at Lamar University

Lamar University

Lamar University, often referred to as Lamar or LU, is a comprehensive coeducational public research university located in Beaumont, Texas, United States. Lamar confers bachelors, masters and doctoral degrees and is classified as a Doctoral Research University by the Carnegie Commission on Higher...

 in Beaumont, Texas

Beaumont, Texas

Beaumont is a city in and county seat of Jefferson County, Texas, United States, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur Metropolitan Statistical Area. The city's population was 118,296 at the 2010 census. With Port Arthur and Orange, it forms the Golden Triangle, a major industrial area on the...

, in 1966, Wilkerson obtained his MFA (1968) from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. He settled in St. Louis following military service in the Army

United States Army

The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...

 from 1968 - 1970. Wilkerson exhibited at galleries in St. Louis, Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

, New Orleans, New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, and Carmel, California. His works are represented in several public collections including, among others, the St. Louis Art Museum, the Baltimore Museum of Art

Baltimore Museum of Art

The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...

, the Delaware Art Museum

Delaware Art Museum

The Delaware Art Museum is an art museum located on the Kentmere Parkway in Wilmington, Delaware, which holds a collection of more than 12,000 works. The museum, was founded in 1912 as the Wilmington Society of the Fine Arts in honor of the artist Howard Pyle and is now celebrating its centennial...

 in Wilmington

Wilmington, Delaware

Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...

, the Tucson Museum of Art, and the Evansville Museum of Arts and Science in Evansville, Indiana

Evansville, Indiana

Evansville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Indiana and the largest city in Southern Indiana. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 117,429. It is the county seat of Vanderburgh County and the regional hub for both Southwestern Indiana and the...

. The major theme of his work is food — including lobsters, burgers

Burgers

-People:* Johannes Martinus Burgers, Dutch physicist, namesake of Burgers' equation and brother of W. G. Burgers* W. G. Burgers, Dutch crystallographer and brother of J. M...

, a Warholesque

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

 Campbell's Pork and Beans can, bananas, cherries, apples, pears, fortune cookies

Fortune Cookies

Fortune Cookies is the second album by Alana Davis, released in 2001. It peaked at #34 on Billboard's Heatseekers Album chart at the time of its release.-Track listing:...

, and cups of coffee

Coffee

Coffee is a brewed beverage with a dark,init brooo acidic flavor prepared from the roasted seeds of the coffee plant, colloquially called coffee beans. The beans are found in coffee cherries, which grow on trees cultivated in over 70 countries, primarily in equatorial Latin America, Southeast Asia,...

. Wilkerson died of cancer at age 63.

External links

• St. Louis University Museum of Art. Discerning Palette: Jerry O. Wilkerson Retrospective, 2008. artist biography and exhibit brochure
• Askart.com pages on Jerry O. Wilkerson
• Askart.com: color images of Wilkerson's work
• Artnet.com information on Wilkerson