Wally Hedrick

Wally Hedrick, born Wally Bill Hedrick in 1928 Pasadena, California – d. December 17, 2003, San Francisco, California

Beginnings

Hedrick visited California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) in 1946. During this period, he joined Progressive Art Workers with Paula Webb, David Simpson, Deborah Remington, Hayward King, Rudolph Jenkins, John Allen Ryan, John Stanley and others. The Progressive Art Workers was a social club which also functioned as a co-operative through which the group the members were able to exhibit their works.

In 1951, during the Korean War, Hedrick was drafted into the United States Army and stationed in Korea until 1952. This action had a profound effect upon Hedrick’s life and work since he was enlisted against his will. In fact, Hedrick was escorted away by US Army MPs without even having the chance to call his parents. Through out his career a recurring theme is his anti-war stance. During the Vietnam War, he actually painted all of his works black (the now infamous “Black Paintings”) believing he was withdrawing his contribution to western culture. These paintings he later recycled -- recycling being another recurring theme in his work--during the Persian Gulf War, slathering the older black paintings them with new statements in white acrylic paint like, "So damn, whose sane?".

The Six Gallery

In 1954, Hedrick co-founded The Six Gallery in San Francisco, California with David Simpson, Hayward King, John Allen Ryan, Deborah Remington and Jack Spicer. The Six Gallery functioned as an underground art gallery for the members and a meeting place for poets and literati alike. Allen Ginsberg first read his poem, "Howl", at The Six Gallery.

The Sixteen Americans Exhibition at MOMA

In 1955, art curator Dorothy Miller came to the West Coast and included Hedrick in the now legendary 1959 "Sixteen Americans" show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, NY. Most of the chosen participants in this now legendary exhibition have since become firmly placed in the pantheon of Pop Art, Minimalist Art and Contemporary Art: for example Hedrick's then wife, Jay DeFeo, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. True to form, Hedrick gave his cross-country plane ticket for the New York museum exhibition and spectacle to someone he hardly knew, rather than participate in the nonsense of pomp and spectacle.

Significance and Artistic Temperament

It is important to stress that one cannot properly evaluate Hedrick’s enormous artistic legacy without acknowledging the key role his temperament significantly truncated the conditions by which any critical determination, or any commercial success could begin. Throughout his life, Hedrick gleefully shunned (if not refused completely) any and all media attention that would insure his proper place in the history of art among his peers. Walter Hopps, one of the nations most influential art curators, in his forward to 1985 Hedrick’s Adeline Kent Award exhibition at the San Francisco Art Institute, stated that Hedrick “decided to ignore the ideal of "career", "fame" and "greatness" to which his peers aspired, and settled for a simpler life, uncomplicated by openings and galleries and cocktail parties”.

Fortunately, the cultural historian Rebecca Solnit in her important 1990 book, The Secret Exhibition: Six Californian Artists, reasserted Hedrick’s unprecedented artistic achievements: “It is now possible to say that Hedrick was ahead of his time: (A) the first American to protest the Vietnam War, (B) the artist to paint flags before Jasper Johns painted flags, (C) who made kinetic junk sculpture before Tinguely did. (D) Hedrick was a forerunner of a. Pop Art, b. Bad Painting, c. Neo-Expressionism, d. and image appropriation. It might be more useful to view Hedrick as an artist who was of his time in a unique way, a maverick whose responses to the world showed it in a different light.”

Career

Hedrick taught at various institutions throughout his career including the San Francisco Art Institute, the San Francisco Academy of Art, San Francisco State University, University of California at Davis, San Jose State University and the College of Marin, where he held Professor Emeritus status. Many of his students have achieved remarkable success: William Wiley, Robert Hudson, William Allen, Mike Henderson and LG Williams.

Wally Hedrick’s works have been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The de Young Museum. His work resides in public collections which include The Smithsonian Institution, The Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern]], and The de Young Museum to name a few.

References

Wally Hedrick, Statement for Catalogue, "Sixteen Americans", Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, 1959, p.13
Rebecca Solnit, “Secret Exhibition: Six Californian Artists”, 1990. ISBN: 0872862542
Walter Hopps, "Can't Be Cut to Fit (Too Few Thoughts of the Subject of Wally Hedrick)
Lucy Lippard, "Pop Art", 1966, p.144
Gina Dorre and LG Williams, "Envisioning The Dark Millennium - Wally Hedrick’s Black Paintings 1953 - 2003" [1], 2005.

External Links

[2] The Official Website for Wally Hedrick