Background

Jane Wilson was born on April 29, 1924 in Seymour, Iowa, United States. She was a daughter of Wayne Wilson, a civil engineer, and Cleone Margaret Marquis, a teacher, novelist and poet.

Education

In 1941, Jane entered the University of Iowa, graduating with Bachelor of Arts degree in 1945. She continued her studies and in 1947, Wilson got her Master of Arts degree at the same university.

Career

In 1947, Jane started her career as a Professor at the University of Iowa, a post she held till 1949, when she settled down in New York together with her husband John Gruen. There, Jane joined the New York School, an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers and musicians. Since 1952, she started to collaborate with Tanager Gallery and Hansa Gallery, where she exhibited her works. During that period, Wilson also worked as a fashion model.

In the mid-1950's, Wilson became interested in Expressionism movement and started to create her expressionist landscapes. In 1960, she was commissioned to create a portrait of Andy Warhol, which would later be entitled "Andy and Lilacs". During the late 1960's and through the 1970's, Jane created her still lifes. In the 1980's, she started to paint landscapes again.

During the period from 1967 to 1970, Wilson served as a Professor at Pratt Institute. Also, since 1973 to 1983, Jane acted as a Professor at Parsons School of Design in New York. In 1976, she was appointed a Visiting Professor in Painting at Cooper Union, a post she held till 1977. Between 1986-1988, Wilson served as an Acting Chair at Columbia University School of the Arts.

Wilson’s works have been seen in dozens of solo and group shows in galleries and museums across the United States. In 1999, she exhibited her works at DC Moore Gallery in New York.

Achievements

• Jane Wilson received many awards, including Eloise Spaeth Award (1968), Benjamin Altman Prize (1990), Lotus Club Medal of Merit (1993), Lifetime Achievement Award (2002) and others.
  
  During the period from 1992 to 1994, she was a president of the National Academy Design in New York.
  
  Wilson’s works are kept in the collections of numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and others.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Yesterday’s Clouds

  • Eventide

  • Rain, Heavy at Times

  • The Open Scene

  • Moon Rise

  • Retreating Storm

  • Green Twilight

  • Another Spring

  • Frozen Fields

  • Drifting Sunshower

  • American Horizon

  • Andy and Lilacs

Membership

Jane was a member of American Academy Arts and Letters, Phi Beta Kappa and New York School. Also, she was one of the founding members of the Hansa Gallery.

• 

  president

  National Academy of Design , United States

  1992 - 1994

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• "Any one of Jane Wilson’s paintings is a marvel; the effect of a roomful is extraordinary. From the dark troubled ones to those whose pale gradients make them impossible to photograph, the array is overwhelmingly various as the work of one painter treating a single subject. And yet in all its abundance it might be seen as comprising one vast work, just as in its single, austere dedication it is expressive of the most unbridled extravagance, and in its primal nature it is endlessly renewable, eternally now. Together, Jane Wilson and the sky have made an encyclopedia of moods and textures and marks and palettes, delineating the immense multiple personality we collectively name weather. The sky, which has no memory of its own, is tremendously fortunate to have her as its portraitist, its analyst, its biographer." — Luc Sante, a writer and critic

Connections

Jane married John Gruen, a photographer, on March 28, 1948. Their marriage produced one daughter — Julia Gruen, who became executive director of the Keith Haring Foundation.

Father:

Wayne Wilson

Mother:

Cleone Margaret Marquis

child:

Julia Gruen

husband:

John Gruen

References

• Jane Wilson: Horizons
  2009