Paul Wonner (American, 1920-2008)

Still life with "Femme Au Coq" #2, 1952

About

• Paul Wonner was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, when he painted Still Life with “Femme au Coq” #2. Certainly, by 1952, the impetus for Abstract Expressionism was waning, and Wonner’s approach conveys his own indifference to its merits. He instead indulged in an associative medley of 20th-century Modernism influenced by Picasso. This still life contains many lively hints of the artist’s mature concerns, especially for arranging objects. Wonner is most closely associated with a movement known as Bay Area Figuration. He was at the center of its circle, joining in group discussions and life drawing sessions throughout the 1950s. In 1965, although the Bay Area was ultimately his permanent home, Wonner left Berkeley to teach in Los Angeles, followed by a move to Santa Barbara in 1968. In Southern California, he quickly met other intellectuals and artists, switched to acrylic, and made personal objects his subject matter. By the early 1970s, still-life subjects such as Glasses with Pansies increasingly preoccupied him. Here, a feeling of isolation may be one reading, but the subject is no less the muse for reverie. The tilted plane, an empty field of monochromatic color, suggests distance but also removes all distractions, leaving only the simple and understated brilliance of the joyful pansies. This conception has its affinities to the still lifes Ed Ruscha painted in 1968 –69, but Wonner uses the oversized canvas to bestow monumentality with utmost sincerity, not satire. The play of personal associations and objects in light defined Wonner’s work in the succeeding decades.