Mitchell Wilder

Last updated
Mitchell A. Wilder
BornAugust 20, 1913
Colorado Springs, Colorado
DiedApril 1, 1979
Burial place Fort Worth, Texas
Alma mater McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Occupation(s)Director of art museums and art schools, museum program consultant
Years active1935-1979
Employer(s) Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum, Chouinard Art Institute, Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Honours

    Mitchell (Mitch) Armitage Wilder (August 17, 1913 - April 1, 1979) was an American mid-20th century arts administrator, scholar, and photographer. Between 1935 and 1961 he was the founding curator or director of three art museums: the Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum at Colonial Williamsburg, and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas. Additionally, as director of the Chouinard Art Institute, Wilder facilitated the incorporation of that school for animators into the California Institute of the Arts. [1]

    Contents

    At each institution, Wilder worked for patrons who had the money needed for ambitious projects: in Colorado Springs, Alice Bemis Taylor; at Colonial Williamsburg, John D. Rockefeller Jr.; in Los Angeles, Walt Disney; and in Fort Worth, Ruth Carter Stevenson. Along the way, Wilder built lifelong relationships with artists, scholars, and other arts administrators that led to many acquisitions, exhibitions, and publications. [2] : 18, 45, 50  [3] [4] [5] : 159–161 

    Early years

    Wilder was born in 1913 to Charles T. Wilder and Maude Mitchell Wilder. Charles Wilder, who died when Mitch was only six, had been vice president and editor of the Colorado Springs Gazette . [6] Wilder attended Colorado Springs public schools and Northside School in Williamstown, Massachusetts to prepare for college. As a teenager, he began to correspond with Frederick H. Douglas, curator of the Indian Art Department of the Denver Art Museum about a museum career and, in the summers, worked as a field assistant for the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, since incorporated into the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. He became the protégé of the Colorado Springs philanthropist Alice Bemis Taylor, a collector of Native-American and Spanish-American arts, who paid for Wilder to enroll in the Fine Arts Program at McGill University in Montreal. When he graduated in 1935, Taylor made him curator of the Taylor Museum, still under construction. [2] : 18  [3] [7]

    Professional life

    Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center

    Wilder began his work as curator of the Taylor Museum in a temporary office. The museum itself was to be a major component of the newly founded Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, designed by the Santa Fe architect John Gaw Meem, and funded by Taylor. When the new building opened, in 1936, the first exhibition highlighted Taylor's collection of Pueblo and Navajo crafts. Working closely with Taylor, Wilder expanded the scope of the collections, began publishing related scholarly works, and organizing programs including lectures and film series. The museum's first publications were George Kubler's The Rebuilding of San Miguel at Santa Fe in 1710 and The Religious Architecture of New Mexico In the Colonial Period and Since the American Occupation. In his preface to latter book, Kubler wrote "Many of the photographs were made for this book by Mr. Wilder, without whose friendly collaboration the text would be much less complete." [8]

    The Museum of Modern Art recognized the national significance of the collection Wilder curated by including five Taylor native American works in its landmark 1941 exhibition Indian Art of the United States. The exhibition was organized by Frederic H. Douglas, with whom Wilder had corresponded about a museum career as a teenager, and Rene D'Harnoncourt, director of the Museum of Modern Art. In addition to D'Harnoncourt, two of MOMA's trustees named in the catalog would later figure in Wilder's career: Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and Walt Disney. [9]

    Just two years later, 1943, MOMA exhibited Religious Folk Art of the Southwest, which featured "... the outstanding collection of Spanish-American art in the Taylor Museum of the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, whose curator, Mitchell A. Wilder prepared the exhibition." The catalog of the exhibition also noted that the "... exhibition notes were prepared largely from material supplied the Museum by Mr. Wilder." [10]

    On becoming Director of the Fine Arts Center in 1945, while continuing as curator of the Taylor Museum, Wilder demonstrated his vision and his contacts with other museum directors by organizing the exhibition New Accessions USA, which showed recent acquisitions by 29 art museums. In Wilder's words, the exhibition was "the first attempt by any institution of the country to demonstrate comprehensively the direction of collecting among American museums in the field of contemporary American painting." Among the museums lending to the exhibition were the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Los Angeles County Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. [11]

    Abby Aldrich Rockefeller American Folk Art Collection Museum

    In 1953, Colonial Williamsburg announced the appointment of Wilder as a vice president and Director of the Division of Presentation. [12] [4] The next year, the President of Colonial Williamsburg announced John D. Rockefeller Jr. had provided approximately one million dollars for the construction outside the restored colonial area of a new building designed especially to house and exhibit his late wife's collection of American Folk Art. [13] When it opened to the public in 1957, the museum was the first American museum dedicated entirely to American folk art. [14] Wilder's particular responsibility was to oversee the construction of the building and the installation of the collection, which included works that had previously been on loan to the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He edited the catalog of the collection, working closely with Nina Fletcher Little, Edith Gregor Halpert, and other scholars, collectors, and dealers of American art. [15] [16] As part of a notice announcing "new and unusual building", Art in America included excerpts from Wilder's published remarks at the museum's opening, including his wish to tell "the role Abby Aldrich Rockefeller played in the transfer of American folk art from the attic and antique shop to the art museums." [17]

    Chouinard Art Institute

    In 1958 Walt Disney installed Wilder as director of the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. [5] : 159  [18] Founded by Nelbert Chouinard in 1923, this was one of the top five art schools in the U.S. [5] : 17  [5] : 61  Disney had been sending his animators to Chouinard for fine arts training since 1929. [5] : 25  To develop the talent needed to produce ever more sophisticated films, Disney envisioned "a multi-disciplined school . . . where the graphic arts, music, drama, and film could all be gathered under one roof." [5] : 161  Wilder spent twenty years administering just such a school, The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. [2] : 8  During his three years at Chouinard, Wilder was able to announce key changes that transformed the 35-year-old art school, which had only been accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design in 1955, into an full-fledged academic institution, accredited by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges. [19] [20] [21] This accreditation led to various changes: the appointment of an academic dean, [22] implementation of a novel curriculum, [23] [24] an animated filmmaking course, [25] a class in Japanese art, [26] and implementation of merit based scholarships. [5] : 155 

    Wilder involved himself in the broader southern California arts scene, judging scholastic art competitions; appearing as a guest on a local telecourse about art, music, and dance; and talking to high school students about a career in the arts. [27] [28] [29]

    In 1960, Wilder worked closely with Richard Fargo Brown, curator of the Los Angeles County Museum, to bring an exhibition of 700 objects from the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller American Folk Art Collection Museum to California. This was the first traveling exhibit from the Williamsburg museum where Wilder had been the founding director. [30]

    Amon Carter Museum of American Art

    Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum of American Art opened in January 1961, without a director, but with a board of trustees, led by its president, Ruth Carter Stevenson, the daughter of Amon Carter, who had died in 1955. The trustees included Richard Fargo Brown, director of the Los Angeles County Museum; architect Philip Johnson—who had designed the building; Rene D’Harnoncourt, director of the Museum of Modern Art; C. R. Smith, CEO of American Airlines; and the Houston collector John de Menil. [31]

    Six months after the museum's opening, the board announced it had selected Mitchell Wilder to be its director. Even before arriving in Fort Worth, Wilder outlined his program for the museum:

    The program of the Amon Carter Museum of Western Art shall be directed to the study, documentation, and presentation of the historic and contemporary culture of the American West. The program shall be expressed in publications, exhibitions, and special projects contributing to the educational resources of the city, state, and nation. Within the broad understanding of the subject, the subject shall not be restricted regionally nor chronologically. [32]

    Wilder's accomplishments during the 18 years he directed the Carter Museum were summarized by the Dallas Morning News Art Editor, Janet Kutner, in the obituary she published on April 3, 1979, two days after Wilder's death. Kutner highlighted:

    Crossing the Pasture (1871-72; Amon Carter Museum of American Art). Winslow Homer - Crossing the Pasture.jpg
    Crossing the Pasture (1871–72; Amon Carter Museum of American Art).

    For Wilder, the program of an art museum was built around four activities: collecting, research, exhibitions, and publications. In recognition of his emphasis on the importance of exhibition publications the Texas Museum Association created the Mitchell A. Wilder Publication Design Award Competition to promote “the highest standards of graphic design and media production.” [33]

    Learning of Wilder's death in 1979, Daniel J. Boorstin, the Librarian of Congress at the time and formerly Director of the Smithsonian Museum of History and Technology, wrote to his widow "He was an ornament to the world of museums and did more than he could ever imagine to promote the understanding of American culture . . . those who have shared his hopes for American culture will not forget him. [34]

    Honors

    Publications

    Related Research Articles

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Museum of Modern Art</span> Art museum in Manhattan, New York City, U.S.

    The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The institution was conceived in 1929 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan. Initially located in the Heckscher Building on Fifth Avenue, it opened just days after the Wall Street Crash. The museum, America's first devoted exclusively to modern art, was led by A. Conger Goodyear as president and Abby Rockefeller as treasurer, with Alfred H. Barr Jr. as its first director. Under Barr's leadership, the museum's collection rapidly expanded, beginning with an inaugural exhibition of works by European modernists. Despite financial challenges, including opposition from John D. Rockefeller Jr., the museum moved to several temporary locations in its early years, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. eventually donated the land for its permanent site.

    Abigail Greene Aldrich Rockefeller was an American socialite and philanthropist. She was a prominent member of the Rockefeller family through her marriage to financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller Jr., the son of Standard Oil co-founder John D. Rockefeller Sr. Her father was Nelson W. Aldrich, who served as a Senator from Rhode Island. Rockefeller was known for being the driving force behind the establishment of the Museum of Modern Art. She was the mother of Nelson Rockefeller, who served from 1974 to 1977 as the 41st vice president of the United States.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Hicks</span> 19th-century American artist

    Edward Hicks was an American folk painter and distinguished religious minister of the Society of Friends. He became a notable Quaker because of his paintings.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Brackman</span> American painter

    Robert Brackman was an American artist and teacher, best known for large figural works, portraits, and still lifes.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles</span> Contemporary art museum

    The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, California, United States. As an independent and non-collecting art museum, it exhibits the work of local, national, and international contemporary artists. Until May 2015, the museum was based at the Bergamot Station Arts Center in Santa Monica, California. In May 2016, the museum announced an official name change to the Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and its relocation to Los Angeles's Downtown Arts District. The museum reopened to the public in September 2017.

    Bertram K. and Nina Fletcher Little were prominent collectors of American folk art and active historians.

    Gayleen Aiken was an American artist who lived in Barre, Vermont. She achieved critical acclaim during her lifetime for her naive paintings and her work has been included in exhibitions of visionary and folk art since the 1980s. She is considered an outsider artist.

    René d'Harnoncourt was an Austrian-born American art curator. He was Director of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, from 1949 to 1967.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum</span> Art gallery in Williamsburg, Virginia

    The DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum (DWDAM), is a museum dedicated to British and American fine and decorative arts from 1670-1840, located in Williamsburg, Virginia.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Folk museum</span>

    A folk museum is a museum that deals with folk culture and heritage. Such museums cover local life in rural communities. A folk museum typically displays historical objects that were used as part of the people's everyday lives. Examples of such objects include clothes and tools. Many folk museums are also open-air museums and some cover rural history.

    Anne Julie d'Harnoncourt was an American curator, museum director, and art historian specializing in modern art. She was the director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA), a post she held from 1982 until her sudden death in 2008. She was also an expert scholar on the works of French artist Marcel Duchamp.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Queena Stovall</span> American painter (1887–1980)

    Queena Stovall was an American folk artist. Sometimes called "The Grandma Moses of Virginia", she is famous for depicting everyday events in the lives of both white and black families in rural settings.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Muscarelle Museum of Art</span> Art museum in Williamsburg, Virginia

    The Muscarelle Museum of Art is a university museum affiliated with the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. While the Museum only dates to 1983, the university art collection has been in existence since its first gift – a portrait of the physicist Robert Boyle – in 1732. Most early gifts to William & Mary relate to its history or the history of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Gifts of portraiture were the foundation of the early collection and include many First Families of Virginia (FFV) including sitters from the Page, Bolling and Randolph families.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum</span> Folk art museum in Williamsburg, Virginia, US

    The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum (AARFAM) is the United States' first and the world's oldest continually operated museum dedicated to the preservation, collection, and exhibition of American folk art. Located just outside the historic boundary of Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia, AARFAM was founded with a collection donated by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller and an endowment from her widower, John D. Rockefeller Jr., heir to the Standard Oil fortune and co-founder of Colonial Williamsburg.

    The Winter Show is an annual art, antiques, and design fair organized by East Side House Settlement and held at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. All net proceeds from the fair benefit East Side House Settlement, which provides education, technology training, and college opportunities to residents of the Bronx and Northern Manhattan.

    Frederic Huntington Douglas also known as Eric Douglas. "was one of the first scholars to recognize the artistic achievements of American Indians as well as the arts of Africa and Oceania."

    Mary Black, née Childs, was an American art historian.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Johannes Spitler</span> American painter of furniture

    Johannes Spitler was an American painter of furniture.

    Herbert Waide "Bert" Hemphill Jr. was an American collector of folk art.

    <span class="mw-page-title-main">Ludwell–Paradise House</span> 18th-century home in Williamsburg, Virginia

    The Ludwell–Paradise House, often also called the Paradise House, is a historic home along Duke of Gloucester Street and part of Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia. The home was built in 1752–1753 for Philip Ludwell III. In December 1926, it became the first property John D. Rockefeller Jr. authorized W. A. R. Goodwin to purchase as part of the Colonial Williamsburg restoration campaign. After being restored, the Ludwell–Paradise House held the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection from 1935 to 1956. The building now serves as a rented private residence in the Williamsburg historic area.

    References

    1. 1 2 Kutner, Janet (April 3, 1979). "Carter Museum Thrives Under Wilder's Hand". Dallas Morning News.
    2. 1 2 3 Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center A History and Selections from the Permanent Collection (First ed.). Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. 1986. ISBN   0-916537-07-2.
    3. 1 2 Pike Peak Vision: The Broadmoor Art Academy 1919-1945 (First ed.). Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. 1989. p. 65. ISBN   0-916537-10-2.
    4. 1 2 "Folk Art Museum for Williamsburg". The Magazine Antiques: 237. March 1954.
    5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Perine, Robert (1985). Chouinard An Art Vision Betrayed (1st ed.). Encinitas CA: Artra Publishing. ISBN   0-936725-00-1.
    6. ↑ "Charles T. Wilder Dies After Illness". Colorado Springs Gazette. November 21, 1919.
    7. ↑ Williamstown - The First 250 Years. Williamstown MA: Williamstown House of Local History & Williamstown 250th Anniversary Committee. 2005. p. 205.
    8. ↑ Kubler, George (1972). The Religious Architecture of New Mexico in the Colonial Period and Since the American Occupation (4th ed.). Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. p. 232.
    9. ↑ Indian Art of the United States. New York: The Museum of Modern Art. 1941. Retrieved 9 Nov 2022.
    10. ↑ "Religious folk art of the Southwest" (PDF). The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art. X. May–June 1943. Retrieved 9 Nov 2022.
    11. ↑ New Accessions USA. Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center. 1946.
    12. ↑ "Mitchell Wilder to Head Division of Presentation". Colonial Williamsburg News. March 1953.
    13. ↑ "Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection". Colonial Williamsburg Report by the President for the Year 1954: 35. 1954.
    14. ↑ Wertkin, Gerald, ed. (2004). Encyclopedia of American Folk Art (2004 ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. xxxi. ISBN   0-415-92986-5. Archived from the original on 29 June 2015. Retrieved 24 October 2022.
    15. ↑ "In the Museums: Folk Art Museum for Williamsburg". The Magazine Antiques. 65 (3): 237. Mar 1954.
    16. ↑ Nylander, Jane (October 1993). "Obituaries Nina Fletcher Little". Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society. 103 Part 2: 315. Retrieved 10 July 2022.
    17. ↑ Wilder, Mitchell (1957). "Museum Trends, Recognition for Folk Art". Art in America. 45 (Summer): 48–51.
    18. ↑ "Mitchell A. Wilder has been appointed director of the Chouinard Art Institute". Mirror News. 2 Oct 1958. Retrieved 1 Jan 2022.
    19. ↑ Chouinard: An Art Vision Betrayed. Encinitas, CA: Artra Publishing. 1985. p. 141. ISBN   0-936725-00-1.
    20. ↑ "Art Matters". Pasadena Independent Star News. 6 March 1960. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
    21. ↑ "Reaccredit Chouinard". Los Angeles Independent. 10 March 1960. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
    22. ↑ "Faculty Dean Announced at Chouinard". The Los Angeles Times. 1 May 1960. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
    23. ↑ "Chouinard System Stimulates Mind". Los Angeles Mirror. 15 August 1961. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
    24. ↑ "Art School Order: Brush Up on Work". The Los Angeles Times. 21 August 1961. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
    25. ↑ "Animated Film to be Topic of Newest Course". South Gate Press. 3 September 1959. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
    26. ↑ "Japanese Brush Painting Class Announced". The Wilmington Daily Press Journal. 25 August 1959. Retrieved 1 January 2022.
    27. ↑ "Judging Started in 14th Scholastic Arts Program". The Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet. 4 Feb 1960. Retrieved 1 Jan 2022.
    28. ↑ "Institute Head Slated". The Los Angeles Times. 3 Nov 1960. Retrieved 1 Jan 2022.
    29. ↑ "A Career in Art". The Los Angeles Mirror. 29 May 1961. Retrieved 1 Jan 2022.
    30. ↑ Henry D. Seldis (7 Aug 1960). "Folk Art on View". The Los Angeles Times. p. 70. Retrieved 30 Aug 2022.
    31. ↑ Holmes, Ann (22 Jan 1961). "Museum of Western Art Is Outstanding". Houston Chronicle.
    32. ↑ Stewart, Lloyd (4 Jun 1961). "Director Appointed By Western Museum". Fort Worth Star Telegram. Retrieved 6 Dec 2020.
    33. ↑ "Mitchell A. Wilder Publication Design Award Competition". Texas Association of Museums. Retrieved June 16, 2022.
    34. ↑ "Mitchell A. Wilder papers, 1946-1979 Reel 1685". The Archives of American Art. Archives of American Art.
    35. ↑ "Name Wilder to Art Post: Curator of Taylor Museum to Advise Federal Office". Vol. 15, no. 1. Sun Gazette & Telegraph. 9 Nov 1941.
    36. ↑ "Mitchell Wilder Appointed Federal Esthetic Advisor". Colorado Springs-Gazette Telegraph. 27 May 1967. Retrieved 6 Dec 2020.
      This page is based on this Wikipedia article
      Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
      Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.