Evan Wilson was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1953. He showed
interest in art at an early
age when University of Alabama art professor
and family friend Richard Brough provided him
with painting materials
and inspiration. In 1971, Wilson enrolled in the prestigious North
Carolina School of the Arts to complete high school. There he
experimented with various styles
of art. After high school, Wilson
attended the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore
where he met
his lifelong mentor, Joseph Sheppard, an internationally known realist
painter.
After college, Wilson studied at the Schuler School of Fine Arts in
Baltimore. In 1978, he
was awarded the Greenshields Foundation grant to
study painting in Florence, Italy. Over
the following twenty-five years,
Wilson has honed his technique, which uses broad brushstrokes
to create
paintings that are immediate and of the moment. A master of painting
light and its
effects on objects, he often incorporates swatches of
sunlight in his interiors. He takes
ordinary objects and scenes in life –
such as hanging clothes on a line – and makes them elegant.
As he
stated in the Huntsville Museum of Art catalog to his show, “the fun
comes when playing
with traditional concepts to create something
entirely new.” For example, Wilson places
casual sunflowers in silver
and porcelain vases for a fresh interpretation.
Wilson extended the realism tradition into a new realm when he
painted a series of
canvases depicting baptisms in the Gees Bend area of
Alabama. The works have a “timeless,
spiritual quality” that viewers
have responded to with emotion. Down to the Water,
Alabama Baptism is
Wilson’s quintessential depiction of a rural baptism in a creek. After
researching for eight years, Wilson decided to portray a processionary
rhythm with sunlight
flowing down the embankment. In 2001, Down to the
Water was featured in a solo exhibition
at the Huntsville Museum of Art
(catalog enclosed) and later was purchased for the
museum’s permanent
collection.
Wilson’s paintings are included in many other public and private
collections, including the
Greenville County Museum of Art in South
Carolina and the Royal Academy of Music in
London, England. Nearly
thirty of Wilson’s paintings are included in the collection of the
Warner Westervelt Museum of Art, considered to be one of the finest
collections of American
art in the world.
Wilson has received many awards. Most recently, he was honored with
the William
Bouguereau Award for Emotion, Theme and the Figure in the
2006 Art Renewal Center’s
Annual International Salon. In 1999, Wilson
received the Alabama Arts Award presented
by the University of Alabama’s
Society for the Fine Arts in recognition of his artistic talent
and
ability to capture his Alabama heritage on canvas.
Wilson remains true to his mission to bring realist painting back
into the forefront of American
art. Most recently, he helped organize an
exhibition entitled “Legacy: A Tradition Lives On,”
which is on a
three-year tour of museums nationwide. There, he is grouped with eleven
other
artists who also studied under Joseph Sheppard. Please visit
traditionliveson.com for
more information on this important exhibit.
Wilson’s strong traditional training to “paint what he sees” has
allowed him to paint a wide array
of subjects, from white peonies in
silver pitchers to rural baptisms in creeks to the official portrait
of
Alabama First Lady Lori Siegelman. Always searching for new subjects and
new ways to
depict them, Wilson divides his time among interiors,
florals, figures, landscapes, and
portraits.
Currently, Wilson lives in Hoosick, New York, a painterly location
in upstate. His early-
nineteenth-century home is often the subject
matter of his paintings. He also makes regular
visits to Alabama for
inspiration. The diverse subjects he has painted in his home state
include
the Sipsey Swamp, the Cahaba Lilies, and big-leaf magnolias
prevalent in Alabama.
