Paul Wonner
Biography
Paul Wonner was born in Tucson in 1920, and moved to the Bay Area for the first time to study at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland (now California College of the Arts), where he earned a Bachelor's degree in 1941. After military service in Texas, Wonner moved to New York, where he worked as a package designer and briefly continued his training at the Art Students League. He returned to the Bay Area in 1950 and by 1953 completed Bachelor's and Master's degrees in fine arts at UC Berkeley. Wonner then worked as a librarian at UC Davis in the late 1950s, until his move to Southern California, where he taught at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles and UC Santa Barbara during the 1960s.
He enjoyed collegial support for his work from originators of the Bay Area Figurative style, including David Park (1911-1960) and Richard Diebenkorn (1922-1993). He painted in a brushy manner similar to theirs until the late 1970s, when his style turned crisp, emphasizing bright light and sharp shadows, and he concentrated on still life themes.
The Dutch Baroque still life tradition served as a historical source for Wonner, but he typically painted objects from everyday contemporary life. His mature pictures distinctively portray things as separated by almost surrealistically vacant distended spaces. Acclaimed for his distinctive mature style of still life painting, had numerous solo exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Major museums throughout the United States have collected his work. In recent years, he returned to painting human figures in vaguely allegorical arrangements and settings.
Gallery Exhibitions
The Art of Giving - December 9, 2010 - January 19, 2011 Paul Wonner, A Memorial Exhibition - October 2 - November 1, 2008 Summer in the City 2008 - July 10 - August, 2008 Paul Wonner, Forty Years of Paintings on Paper - January 8 - March 11, 2004 Paul Wonner, Recent Painting and Works on Paper - July 12 - September 9, 2000
Artist Publications
Abstract and Figurative: Highlights of Bay Area Painting, Elmer Bischoff, Theophilus Brown, Richard Diebenkorn, Manuel Neri, Nathan Oliveira, Wayne Thiebaud, James Weeks, and Paul Wonner
Press
What set Bay Area painters apart in '60s, San Francisco Chronicle Download PDF (40 K)
Bay Area Painter Paul Wonner Dies, San Francisco Chronicle Download PDF (30 K)
Art & Antiques: Paul Wonner, Western Unorthodox Download PDF (302 K)
Selected Works
Paul Wonner Dutch Still Life with Pots of Chrysanthemums, 1978 Acrylic on canvas 70 x 48 inches
Paul Wonner Untitled, Dutch Still Life with Cushions, 1979 Oil on canvas 72 x 84 inches
Paul Wonner Garden Chairs and Lunch Table, 1998 Acrylic on canvas 48 x 36 inches
Paul Wonner Studio: Blue Cloth and Navajo Rug, 2000 Acrylic on canvas 66 x 60 inches
Paul Wonner Green Cloth, Orange Juice, Magnifying Glass, 2000 Acrylic on paper 38 x 27 inches
Paul Wonner Study for Still Life with Flowers & American Writers, 1980 Acrylic and charcoal on paper 28 1/2 x 24 1/2 inches
Paul Wonner Plant Stand and Garden Gloves, 1997 Acrylic on paper 40 x 23 inches
Paul Wonner Room with Curved Window Cat and Bird, 2000 Acrylic on paper 38 x 27 inches
Paul Wonner Studio: Two Tables Popover and Coffee, 2000 Acrylic on paper 38 1/2 x 27 inches
Paul Wonner Bathers After Cezanne II, 2003 Acrylic and pencil on paper 12 x 17 inches
Paul Wonner In the Shade, 2004 Acrylic and pencil on paper 14 x 19 3/4 inches
Paul Wonner Small Park on the Bay VI, 2003 Acrylic and pencil on paper 15 x 18 1/2 inches