Wally Hedrick; iconoclastic painter, sculptor
Hyfler/Rosner
http://www.wallyhedrick.com/Hedrick_Home_Page.html
http://www.somarts.org/beat/JPG/Hedrick_wally.JPG
http://artarchives.si.edu/oralhist/hedric74.htm
HEADLINE: Wally Hedrick -- iconoclastic painter, sculptor
BYLINE: Gerald D. Adams
Wally Hedrick, a distinguished yet recalcitrant member of the nation's
artistic community, died of congestive heart failure at his home Wednesday
in Sonoma County. He was 75.
For decades, Mr. Hedrick was a leading member of San Francisco's creative
bohemia, "who influenced a lot of other artists," said Mary Miles Ryan,
former public relations director of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art,
which has included his works in its permanent collection.
Not unlike other noted members of the San Francisco creative world of the
1950s, '60s, '70s and '80s, Mr. Hedrick was a curmudgeonly nonconformist who
was wont to rail against the establishment.
"He had a love-hate relationship with the art world, wanting to be part of
it and not wanting to be part of it," said his widow, Catherine Conlin. She
recalled that he tended to avoid socially elite openings of shows, even
those of friends and contemporaries including some of the art world's bigger
names. She mentioned Jasper Johns, Bruce Conner, Deborah Remington, Joan
Brown and Michael McClure.
Walter Hopps, former director of Houston's Menil Collection, said in a
foreword to a 1985 San Francisco Art Institute show featuring Mr. Hedrick's
paintings and sculptures that the artist "gravitated away from what anyone
would call mainstream."
In another perspective, David S. Rubin, former curator of 20th century art
at the Phoenix Art Museum, wrote that Mr. Hedrick's paintings "are filled
with provocative, often whimsical messages, many of which would be
considered daring if measured by the standards of the time in which they
were painted."
Rubin recalled that when Mr. Hedrick returned to the United States in 1953
after serving in the Army in Korea, he painted an emblematic work in which
the word "peace" was superimposed over an American flag. It was, Rubin
wrote, "a significant precursor to postmodern art of the '80s when social
content was often communicated through metaphoric employment of symbols."
Mr. Hedrick's perverse nature, his widow noted, was the product of two
disparate worlds. His Pennsylvania Quaker father once ran a Tijuana pool
hall and gambling establishment, leaving Mr. Hedrick with "a strong aversion
to gambling," Conlin said. Because of the influence of his mother, a
Bible-thumping Texas Baptist, she said, Mr. Hedrick's work "tends to have a
fire-and-brimstone quality, reminding the viewer of the perils of the
American Dream."
Mr. Hedrick's philosophy, Conlin said, was "to keep his wants to a minimum,
reserving his energies for his work instead of participating in the general
consumer society."
Ryan recalled Mr. Hedrick's readiness to revert to rudimentary means to
achieve an end. During his earlier marriage to the late artist Jay De Feo,
she said, the couple suddenly realized De Feo's monumental work, the
two-story-high "The Rose" was too tall to be removed from their San
Francisco studio. With help from fellow artist Michael McClure, Ryan said,
Mr. Hedrick took the ceiling out of the apartment. She could not recall
whether or how the ceiling was restored.
Mr. Hedrick was an admirer of Leonardo da Vinci, and whether he was making
sculptures out of beer cans, depicting his own heart attack in the painting
of an electrocardiogram-like pattern or portraying his relationships with
women by means of magnets tugging from polar directions, he followed "the
lead of the Renaissance master in his willingness to ignore rules and
convention and postulate thoughts, ideas or visions that are without
precedent," Rubin wrote in his 1985 perspective.
Mr. Hedrick's works are in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern
Art in New York City and locally have been exhibited in the Paule Anglim and
Quay galleries.
Among Mr. Hedrick's honors and awards were a Pollock-Krasner Foundation
grant, a support grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation and
three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1968, 1982 and
1993-94.
Besides Conlin, he is survived by a son, Max La Riviere-Hedrick of San
Francisco, and a sister, Patty Hedrick of Southern California.
A memorial service for family and friends will be held at the family's
Bodega home on Jan. 31. Memorial donations may be made to the Sutter VNA and
Hospice of Sonoma County, 1110 N. Dutton Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95401-4606.
GRAPHIC: PHOTO, Wally Hedrick stands next to his oil painting "Decorous
Image," which was 6 feet across. / Gallery Paule Anglim