Paul Wonner
Encyclopedia
Paul John Wonner was an American artist who was born in Tucson, Arizona
. He received a B.A. in 1952, an M.A. in 1953, and an M.L.S.
in 1955―all from the University of California, Berkeley
. He rose to prominence in the 1950s as an abstract expressionist
associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement, along with his partner, Theophilus Brown
(1919- ), whom he met in 1952 while attending graduate school. In 1956, Wonner started painting a series of dreamlike male bathers and boys with bouquets. In 1962, he began teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles
. By the end of the 1960s, he had abandoned his loose figurative style and focused exclusively on still life
s in a hyperrealist
style. Wonner died April 23, 2008 in San Francisco, California
.
Paul Wonner is best known for his still-life paintings done in an abstract expressionist
style.
(Stanford University
, California
); the Crocker Art Museum
, (Sacramento, California
); the Davis Art Center, (Davis, California
); the Honolulu Academy of Arts
, Honolulu, Hawaii
; the Hunter Museum of American Art
, (Chattanooga, Tennessee
); the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
, (Kansas City, Missouri
); the Kresge Art Museum, (Michigan State University
, East Lansing, Michigan
); the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, (San Antonio, Texas
); the Oakland Museum of California
, (Oakland, California
); the Philbrook Museum of Art
, (Tulsa, Oklahoma
); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
, San Francisco, California
; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art
, (Santa Barbara, California
); the Sheldon Museum of Art (Lincoln, Nebraska
); the Smithsonian American Art Museum
(Washington, D.C.
); and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
(New York City
) are among the public collections holding work by Paul Wonner.
Tucson, Arizona
Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200...
. He received a B.A. in 1952, an M.A. in 1953, and an M.L.S.
Master of Library and Information Science
The Master of Library and Information Science is the master's degree that is required for most professional librarian positions in the United States and Canada. The MLIS is a relatively recent degree; an older and still common degree designation for librarians to acquire is the Master of Library...
in 1955―all from the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. He rose to prominence in the 1950s as an abstract expressionist
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
associated with the Bay Area Figurative Movement, along with his partner, Theophilus Brown
Theophilus Brown
William Theophilus Brown is an American artist born in Moline, Illinois. He became prominent as a member of the Bay Area Figurative Movement.-Background and career:...
(1919- ), whom he met in 1952 while attending graduate school. In 1956, Wonner started painting a series of dreamlike male bathers and boys with bouquets. In 1962, he began teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles
The University of California, Los Angeles is a public research university located in the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, USA. It was founded in 1919 as the "Southern Branch" of the University of California and is the second oldest of the ten campuses...
. By the end of the 1960s, he had abandoned his loose figurative style and focused exclusively on still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
s in a hyperrealist
Hyperrealism (painting)
Hyperrealism is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of Photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures...
style. Wonner died April 23, 2008 in San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
.
Paul Wonner is best known for his still-life paintings done in an abstract expressionist
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
style.
Selected collections
The Cantor Arts CenterIris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts
The Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, formerly the Stanford University Museum of Art, and commonly known as the Cantor Arts Center, is an art museum on the campus of Stanford University in Stanford, California. The museum, which opened in 1894, consists of over...
(Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
); the Crocker Art Museum
Crocker Art Museum
The Crocker Art Museum is one of the leading arts institutions in California, and the longest continuously operating art museum in the West. Located in Sacramento, California, the Crocker has been an art innovator since 1885...
, (Sacramento, California
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
); the Davis Art Center, (Davis, California
Davis, California
Davis is a city in Yolo County, California, United States. It is part of the Sacramento–Arden-Arcade–Roseville Metropolitan Statistical Area...
); the Honolulu Academy of Arts
Honolulu Academy of Arts
The Honolulu Academy of Arts is an art museum in Honolulu in the state of Hawaii. Since its founding in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke and opening April 8, 1927, its collections have grown to over 40,000 works of art.-Description:...
, Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu, Hawaii
Honolulu is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Hawaii. Honolulu is the southernmost major U.S. city. Although the name "Honolulu" refers to the urban area on the southeastern shore of the island of Oahu, the city and county government are consolidated as the City and...
; the Hunter Museum of American Art
Hunter Museum of American Art
The Hunter Museum of American Art is an art museum in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The museum's collections include works representing the Hudson River School, 19th century genre painting, American Impressionism, the Ashcan School, early modernism, regionalism, and post World War II modern and...
, (Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
); the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art
The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art opened in 1994 in Kansas City, Missouri. The core of the museum's permanent collection is the Bebe and R. Crosby Kemper Jr. Collection, a gift of the museum's founders. The collection includes works created after the 1913 Armory Show to works by present-day...
, (Kansas City, Missouri
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...
); the Kresge Art Museum, (Michigan State University
Michigan State University
Michigan State University is a public research university in East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Founded in 1855, it was the pioneer land-grant institution and served as a model for future land-grant colleges in the United States under the 1862 Morrill Act.MSU pioneered the studies of packaging,...
, East Lansing, Michigan
East Lansing, Michigan
East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located directly east of Lansing, Michigan, the state's capital. Most of the city is within Ingham County, though a small portion lies in Clinton County. The population was 48,579 at the time of the 2010 census, an increase from...
); the Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, (San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio, Texas
San Antonio is the seventh-largest city in the United States of America and the second-largest city within the state of Texas, with a population of 1.33 million. Located in the American Southwest and the south–central part of Texas, the city serves as the seat of Bexar County. In 2011,...
); the Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California
Oakland Museum of California or Oakland Museum is a museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California located in Oakland, California....
, (Oakland, California
Oakland, California
Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...
); the Philbrook Museum of Art
Philbrook Museum of Art
The Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma is an art museum and former home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his wife Genevieve Phillips. , the museum has a staff of 60 and an operating budget of nearly $6 million....
, (Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Tulsa is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 46th-largest city in the United States. With a population of 391,906 as of the 2010 census, it is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with 937,478 residents in the MSA and 988,454 in the CSA. Tulsa's...
); the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
, San Francisco, California
San Francisco, California
San Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
The Santa Barbara Museum of Art is an art museum located at 1130 State St. in downtown Santa Barbara, California.It was founded in 1941 and currently ranks amongst the top 10 regional art museums in the United States . It is home to both permanent and special collections, the former of which...
, (Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
); the Sheldon Museum of Art (Lincoln, Nebraska
Lincoln, Nebraska
The City of Lincoln is the capital and the second-most populous city of the US state of Nebraska. Lincoln is also the county seat of Lancaster County and the home of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln's 2010 Census population was 258,379....
); the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is a museum in Washington, D.C. with an extensive collection of American art.Part of the Smithsonian Institution, the museum has a broad variety of American art that covers all regions and art movements found in the United States...
(Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
); and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a well-known museum located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States. It is the permanent home to a renowned collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, early Modern, and contemporary art and also features special exhibitions...
(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...
) are among the public collections holding work by Paul Wonner.