Why has it never occurred to me to connect the work of William T. Wiley and that of H.C. Westermann? The linkage will appear inevitable to anyone who sees the current show in which Berggruen mingles their watercolors and sculpture.
Westermann (1922–1981) was a Los Angeles native whose influence showed most clearly in the work of younger artists in Chicago, where he had attended the School of the Art Institute, and frequently exhibited. Wiley hails from eastern Washington and has been a towering figure on the Bay Area art scene for decades.
Their visions converge over issues such as militarism and the social madness that underlies it.
The current selection honors the debt of both artists to graffiti, outsider art and craft as solace in a hostile world. Yet only one piece here — Westermann’s sculpture “The Deerslayer” (1969) — might have been made by either man.
