Skip to content
Donald Roller Wilson

Donald Roller Wilson
A RITE OF PASSAGE NAUGHTY BETTY…SEEN HERE ALONG WITH HER HALF-SISTER, JUDY… BOTH GIRLS BEING OBSERVED POSTERIORLY BY THE FATHER…WATCHING WITH EXAGGERATED DISINTEREST FROM HIS ROOM NEAR THE TOP OF HIS TOWER…BUT HESITANT TO PERSONALLY INTERVENE…MONITORING AN ESCALATING FAULTED PROGRESS OF A HERETOFORE THRICE-FAILED, JOINT BATMITZVAH…ONE TEETERING ON THE BRINK OF A FOURTH FAILURE, TO BOOT…
Oil on canvas in artist's frame
23 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches
Framed: 33 1/2 x 29 1/2 x 3 inches

Donald Roller Wilson

Donald Roller Wilson
HOLLY SAW THE PRIMARY COLORS BEING TOSSED INTO THE AIR, 1985
Oil on canvas in artist's frame
14 x 10 inches

Donald Roller Wilson

Donald Roller Wilson
PATRICIA’S STRUGGLE TO GET TO THE PIANO DURING THE HIGH WINDS WHICH WHIPPED UP IN MRS. JENKINS’ HALLWAY: AND JUST PRIOR TO THE PERFORMANCE OF HER PIECE FOR PIECE FOR THE TALENT PORTION OF MISS DOG AMERICA
1988
Oil on canvas in artist's frame
30 x 28 inches
Framed: 37 1/2 x 35 1/2 inches 

Donald Roller Wilson

Donald Roller Wilson
THE SELDOM SEEN JOANNE: NAUGHTY BETTY AND MORT, 2008
Oil on canvas in artist's frame
18 1/2 x 15 1/2 inches
Framed: 24 1/2 x 21 1/2 x 2 5/8 inches

Donald Roller Wilson

Donald Roller Wilson
FIFTY YEARS FOLLOWING THE 1938 CROWNING OF HELEN AS MISS DOG AMERICA (AND FINDING HER STILL EXHAUSTED FROM HAVING TO GO THROUGH WHAT SHE HAD TO GO THROUGH TO FIN (AND ALSO FINDING HER STILL CONFUSED ABOUT JUST WHAT IT ALL HAD TO DO WITH… AND ALSO SOME BOTHERSOME MEMORIES ABOUT PROBLEMS WITH SCALE, WHEN SEVERAL ITEMS BLOWN UP BY A STRONG WIND DURING,
ESPECIALLY, THE TALENT PORTION OF THE PAGEANT, HAD BECOME VERY VERY LARGE AS THEY HEADED UP TOWARD THE CEILING IN MRS. JENKIN’S HALLWAY, AND ON OUT THROUGH THE CHIMNEY
, 1988
Oil on canvas in artist's frame
25 x 21 inches
Framed: 33 1/2 x 30 x 3 1/2 inches

Press Release

Berggruen Gallery is proud to present selected paintings from 1977-2014 by Donald Roller Wilson as a part of the artist's eponymous exhibition with the gallery, on view for the month of December 2019.

Donald Roller Wilson was born in Houston, Texas and currently lives and works in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Roller Wilson is a Gothic storyteller with the phenomenal technique and precision of an old master, animating his paintings with finely wrought clothed chimpanzees, dogs, and cats, wooden matches, dill pickles, asparagus stalks, olives, and cigarette butts. He creates characters like Cookie the Baby Orangutan, Jane the Pug Girl, Jack the Jack Russell "Terror," Loretta the Actress Cat, Miss Dog America, and Patricia the Seeing Eye Dog of Houston. Each character springs from the artist's hyper-vivid imagination into lengthy caption fantasies and onto canvases that require an enormous amount of time to complete, all painted in vivid detail, reminiscent of the 16th century Dutch masters. Roller Wilson's recognizable works hang in the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, IL; Whitney Museum, New York, New York; Bank of America, San Francisco, CA; and Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden- Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C.