Wally Hedrick
(1928 - 2003)

Wally Hedrick (1928 - 2003)

 

A seminal American artist in the 1950s California counterculture, gallerist, and educator who came to prominence in the early 1960s. Hedrick’s contributions to art include pioneering artworks in psychedelic light art, mechanical kinetic sculpture, junk/assemblage sculpture, Pop Art, and (California) Funk Art. Later in his life, he was a recognized forerunner in Happenings, Conceptual Art, Bad Painting, Neo-Expressionism, and image appropriation.
 

Hedrick was known for his stylistically diverse paintings that focused unflinchingly and humorously on three main topics; politics, sex, and religion. Wally Hedrick was anti-establishment to his core and once summed up his career with: “I don’t think of this as a profession; I’m a used-car salesman.” Starting in the late 1940s and ’50s, he responded to world events through art. A veteran of the Korean War, he was particularly contemptuous of America’s ongoing conflicts. Hedrick was at the heart of the Beat Movement and was one of the founders of San Francisco’s 6 Gallery, where his close friend Allen Ginsberg first read “Howl.” With his affinity for Marcel Duchamp and the Dadaists, mass media, the art market, and consumer culture remained sharply critical until the end of his life.

 

Collections

Museum of Modern Art, NY
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Oakland Museum of California
di Rosa Preserve, Napa
San Jose Museum of Art
Berkeley Art Museum, University of California
Phoenix Art Museum
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco- de Young Museum
Sonoma State Univerity, Santa Rosa
Mills College, Oakland
San Francisco Art Commission Civic Art Collection
 

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2016  The Absence of Light: Black Paintings (1957-2003), The Box, Los Angeles
2010  Wally Hedrick, The Box, Los Angeles
2008  Wally Hedrick: War Room, The Box, Los Angeles
2007  Wally Hedrick: Estate Sale, Michael Kohn Gallery, Los Angeles
2003  Wally Hedrick, Linc Art, San Francisco
Wally Hedrick: Pre-emptive Peace, Sonoma State University Art Gallery
2000  Wally Hedrick: Paintings, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
1999  Wally Hedrick: Provisions, Sonoma Museum of Visual Art, Santa Rosa
1996  Wally Hedrick: Madonnas, Gods & Goddesses, King-Heller Gallery, Bodega Bay
1994  Classic Hedrick, Mills College Art Gallery, Oakland
Wally Hedrick: Paintings, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
1990  Wally Hedrick: Paintings, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
1985  Wally Hedrick: Selected Works, San Francisco Art Institute (catalogue)
1984  Wally Hedrick, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
1982  Wally Hedrick, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
1967  Wally Hedrick, San Francisco Art Institute
1963  Wally Hedrick, New Mission Gallery, San Francisco
 

Selected Group Exhibitions
2019  Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965 – 1975, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC
Dilexi Gallery: Seeking the Unknown, co-curated with Laura Whitcomb, Parker Gallery, Los Angeles
2018  Walking Point, Greene Naftali, New York, NY
2017  Animal Farm, curated by Sadie Laska, The Brand Foundation, Greenwich, CT 
The Rat Bastard Protective Association, curated by Anastasia Aukeman, Susan Inglett Gallery, New York, NY
Bruno Serralongue and Wally Hedrick, Air de Paris, Paris, France
2016  The Rat Bastard Protective Association, curated by Anastasia Aukeman, The Landing Gallery, Los Angeles
2013  SIGHT / VISION: The Urban Milieu, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
2012  Painting, The Box, Los Angeles, CA
Renaissance on Fillmore, 1955–1965, curated by Michael Schwager. DiRosa, Napa, California
The Historical Box curated by Mara McCarthy, Hauser & Wirth, London
The Historical Box, curated by Mara McCarthy, Hauser & Wirth, Zurich
2011  Wally Hedrick and William T. Wiley, The Mayor Gallery, London.
Beyond Tradition: Art Legacies at the Richmond Art Center, in celebration of the Richmond Art Center’s 75th Anniversary.
2010  Sunless, curated by Walead Beshty Thomas Dane Gallery, London
I.G.Y. curated by Todd Levin.  Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York
Oakland Museum of California Grand Reopening May 2010
2011  Bella Pacifica, Bay Area Abstraction, 1946-1963, A Symphony in Three Parts, David Nolan Gallery, New York; Nyehaus, New York; Franklin Parrasch Gallery, New York
2009  Looking For Mushrooms–Beat Poets, Funk and Minimal Art: Art and Counterculture in San Francisco around 1968, Museum Ludwig, Cologne Sight Vision Revisited, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
2008  Mysteries, curated by Melissa E. Feldman, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco
Paul McCarthy’s Low Life Slow Life: Part 1, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco
Freedom of Expression: Political Art in an Age of Uncertainty, University Art Gallery, Sonoma State University
American Pop, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento
2007  The Creamery: FUNK ART etc from Bodega, the 8 gallery, San Francisco
Artists of Invention: A Century of CAA, Oakland Museum of California
2005  The True Artist is an Amazing Luminous Fountain: Selected Works from the di Rosa Preserve, Napa. Traveled to Washington, D.C., Palm Springs, CA, Santa Cruz, CA (catalogue)
1995-96  Beat Culture and the New America 1950-65, Whitney Museum of American Art. Traveled to Minneapolis, San Francisco (catalogue)
1992  Sight/Vision: The Urban Milieu III, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
1990  The Six Gallery, Natsoulas-Novelozo Gallery, Davis (catalogue)
1986  Sight/Vision: The Urban Milieu II, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
1986  The Spiritual in Art: Abstract Painting 1890-1986, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (catalogue)
1986  2nd Annual Newport Biennial: The Bay Area, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach (catalogue)
1983  Sight/Vision: The Urban Milieu, Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco
1976  The Modern Era: Painting and Sculpture in California, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (catalogue)
1974  Poets of the Cities: New York & San Francisco 1950–1965, Dallas Museum of Art. Traveled to San Francisco, Hartford (catalogue)
1962  New Paintings of Common Objects, Pasadena Art Museum
1959  Sixteen Americans, Museum of Modern Art, New York (catalogue)

 

Education

1956–58  M.A. , San Francisco State University

1953–55  B.F.A., California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute)

1954  California College of Arts & Crafts (now California College of the Arts), Oakland

1947  Otis Art Institute, Los Angeles

 

Teaching

1974–93  College of Marin, Indian Valley Campus, Novato, California, Professor Emeritus

1994  University of California, Davis

1986  University of California, Davis

1972-73  San Jose State University

1960-70  San Francisco Art Institute

1958-59  San Francisco State University

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Honors and Awards

1999  Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant

1997  Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation Individual Support Grant

1993-94  The National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship

1994  Award of Excellence, California State Fair

1993  Golden Bear Award, California State Fair

1991  Golden Bear Award, California State Fair

1985-86  Individual Artist Grant, funded by the San Francisco Foundation

1985  Adaline Kent Award, San Francisco Art Institute, California

1982  The National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship

1968  The National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship