Gerald Wilde, 1905-1986

Gerald Wilde attended Chelsea School of Art from 1926-31 and subsequently studied under Percy Hague Jowett and H. S. Williamson from 1932-34.  He was greatly influenced by the aesthetic theories expoused by Clive Bell in his book Art, and was
Inspired by the abstract surrealism of Picasso, Miró and Klee.  Wilde lost much of his work to the devastating Blitz of 1941 whilst he was serving with the Pioneer Corps. Despite the destructive nature of war, the experience was also a source of great inspiration for him.

The present work dates from the immediate post-war era.  Overlapping layers of gouache are built up in deliberate strokes and an armature of black lines form ghostly abstracted figures which dominate the foreground. Often categorized as Abstract Expressionist, Wilde’s style is difficult to define: “You cannot classify Wilde's art. It is not representative; and neither is it abstract.”  (Joyce Cary, ICA exhibition catalogue, 1955). A richly mobile work with bold colouring and passages of impasto, Composition 1948 is a striking example of Wilde’s oeuvre.

In 1949 he met the author Joyce Carey.  Wilde was said to be the inspiration for the artist character ‘Gulley Jimson’ in Carey’s book The Horse’s Mouth (1944), later adapted for a film starring Alec Guinness in 1958.  Wilde’s contribution to Britain’s post-war art scene was recognized when he was given a retrospective exhibition at the progressive ICA in 1955. In the 1950s Wilde spent time in St Ebba’s Mental Hospital and consequently abandoned painting for twenty years.  It was not until the 1970s that he began to paint again.  In 1979 the October Gallery held a solo exhibition and has continued to exhibit his work ever since.