Gilbert Wilson

Wabash Valley profiles : a series of tributes to hometown people and events that have shaped our history

Description:	One typed page including photograph; biography of Gilbert Wilson, one of Americas premier mural painters. ABASH VALLEY WP R O F I L E SA series of tributes to hometown people and events that have shaped our history.Gilber t Wilsonhe spectacular murals on the walls of Woodrow Wilson Middle School are the product of Terre Haute artist Gilbert Brown Wilson, now recognized among Americas premier mural painters. Born March 4, 1907, at 1201 N. Fourth St., Gilbert was the son of former opera singer Martha Wilson and Wilton A. Wilson, a teller at Terre Haute National Bank who went on to become cashier and vice president when the bank became Terre Haute First National. He was active in Boy Scouts through his days at McLean Junior High and Garfield High School, where he graduated in 1925. At Indiana State Normal, he came under the influence of William T. Turman, professor of art and an esteemed landscape painter. Wilson enrolled at the Chicago Art Institute in 1928 and won his first two awards from the Chicago Hoosier Salon in 1929 and 1930. In Chicago he met muralist Eugene Savage and became Savages apprentice at the Yale School of Fine Arts in New Haven, Conn. Impressed with murals by Diego Rivera and Jos Orozco, he journeyed to Mexico to study with Rivera and, later, Spanish sculptor Urbici Soler. Returning to Terre Haute in 1933, Wilson agreed to paint four murals at Woodrow Wilson. The project consumed the better part of three years. Though praised for his works, Gilbert received no compensation except for a bag of coins collected by Woodrow Wilson students. He also painted a mural at the State Laboratory School on N. Seventh and another at the old science building at Indiana State Teachers College. Later he created murals at Antioch College, the Spink Hotel in Wawasee, the School of Sculpture in New York City, the Elks Memorial at the Lincoln Park building in Chicago, the School of Dance in Columbus, Ohio, and the Weldin Talley Memorial Playhouse in Terre Haute. The Comedy and Tragedy murals at the Community Theatre were commissioned in 1966 by Terre Haute philanthropist Benjamin Blumberg in memory of his wife, artist Fannie Burgheim Blumberg, one of several prominent students of Wilsons. Though Wilson read Herman Melvilles epic Moby Dick as a youth, he became totally absorbed by the novel upon rereading it in 1944 and devoted much of the rest of his life translating its messages to canvas. In 1955, 300 Moby Dick paintings by Wilson were incorporated into a 30-minute film produced by Jerry Winters and narrated by Thomas Mitchell, which won the Venice Film Festival Silver Reed Award. He also assisted movie director John Huston in the production of the 1956 film epic Moby Dick, starring Gregory Peck, and conducted a 52-city tour sponsored by the Melville Society and Warner Brothers to exhibit his art and the two films. He wrote a 55-page libretto, which he envisioned would become the basis for an opera entitled The White Whale, but that dream was not realized before his death on Jan. 16, 1991, at the home of his sister Marjorie in Frankfort, Ky. Swope Art Museum of Terre Haute is the recognized national repository for Wilsons works (and memorabilia) which have received recent attention in Unpainted to the Last: Moby Dick and Twentieth Century American Art by Elizabeth A. Schultz, published in 1995, and the Moby Dick feature on the Discovery Channels Great Books series.TTERRE HAUTE(812) 238-6000NATIONAL BANKAlways Close to HomeDate published: March 22, 2001Filename: Wilson, Gilbert profile
Origin:	2001-03-21
Created By:	McCormick, Mike
Publisher:	Terre Haute Tribune-Star
Source:	http://indianamemory.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/vchs/id/649
Collection:	Vigo County Historical Society
Rights:	http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/
Copyright:	Copyright Undetermined
Subjects:	Wilson, Gilbert Brown, 1907-1991 Murals Artists Famous Hoosiers People

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