William T. Wiley (1937–2021) was an American artist associated with the UC Davis art faculty and the Bay Area Funk Art movement. Widely regarded as one of the most important California artists of the postwar period, Wiley worked across painting, works on paper, sculpture, film, and performance.

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Early Life & Education​

Wiley was raised in Indiana, Texas, and Richland, Washington. In high school, his highly influential art teacher, James McGrath, recognized Wiley’s talent and encouraged him to pursue an art career. Wiley received a full scholarship to the California School of Fine Arts (later the San Francisco Art Institute), along with fellow students Robert Hudson and William Allan. He earned his BFA in 1960 and his MFA in 1962.

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Artistic Practice

Over the course of his career, Wiley worked across a wide range of media, including painting, watercolor, collage, found-object construction, sculpture, printmaking, music, performance, theater, and film.

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UC Davis & Funk Art

In 1963, Wiley joined the UC Davis art department alongside Bay Area Funk artists Robert Arneson and Roy DeForest, and painter Wayne Thiebaud. During his tenure, he taught students including Bruce Nauman, Deborah Butterfield, Richard Shaw, Stephen Kaltenbach, and Stephen Laub. According to Dan Graham, the literary and punning elements in Nauman’s work were influenced by Wiley, who also acknowledged Nauman’s impact on his own practice.

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Early Career & Collaborations

Wiley’s first solo exhibition was held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1960. In the late 1960s, he collaborated with composer Steve Reich, and designed the album artwork for Reich’s early release Violin Phase for Columbia Records. He collaborated with filmmaker Robert Nelson on works such as "The Off-Handed Jape" and "The Great Blondino", and with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and R.G. Davis, designing the sets and costumes for their production of Alfred Jarry's "Ubu Roi." He also produced a series of popular avant-garde theatrical productions at UC Davis titled "Out Our Way."

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William T. Wiley and the Slant Step

In 1965, William T. Wiley discovered a small wooden step with an unusually slanted top in a Bay Area thrift store. Intrigued by its ambiguous form—neither clearly functional nor purely sculptural—Wiley introduced the object into conversations with fellow artists. The “Slant Step” quickly became a shared point of reference among artists associated with the UC Davis community, most notably Bruce Nauman, who adopted the form as an ongoing conceptual and sculptural motif. The Slant Step came to embody qualities central to Wiley’s practice, including humor, perceptual uncertainty, and open-ended meaning.

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The original Slant Step was stolen during its inaugural exhibition at the Berkeley Gallery in San Francisco. For years the object’s whereabouts were unknown, contributing to its growing mythology among artists. It was later recovered from the New York studio of Richard Serra, returning the original object to the historical narrative that had developed around it. The Slant Step, now in the permanent collection of the UC Davis Manetti Shrem Museum, has since remained a continuing source of inspiration for Nauman and other artists, reflecting Wiley’s lasting influence on conceptual thinking and postwar American art.​

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William T. Wiley:  Exhibitions & Recognition

Wiley’s work was featured in major international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale (1980) and the Whitney Biennial (1983). He held significant exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1981), the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum (1996), and the Corcoran Gallery of Art (2005).  In 2009, the Smithsonian American Art Museum presented a major retrospective, What’s It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect. A review in the Wall Street Journal described Wiley as “less a contemporary artist than a national treasure.” The exhibition traveled to the Berkeley Art Museum in 2010.

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Later Career & Posthumous Exhibitions

Wiley continued to exhibit widely in later years, including with Parker Gallery in Los Angeles and Hosfelt Gallery in San Francisco. In 2022, William T. Wiley and the Slant Step: All On The Line, was presented at the UC Davis Manetti Shrem Museum, curated by Dan Nadel. In 2024, he exhibited at MASSIMODECARLO in London.  Wiley's painting "Shark's Dream" was featured in the Whitney Museum's 2025-26 exhibition Sixties Surreal.  His large interactive sculpture "Gong" was acquired by the UC Davis Manetti Shrem Museum and installed at the Mondavi Art Garden in 2026. An exhibition presented by the William T. Wiley Foundation, "The Musical World of William T. Wiley", is scheduled for exhibition in April 2027, at the Haight Street Art Center, as part of the Further Triennial.  

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Collections & Honors

Works by William T. Wiley are held in major public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, Carnegie Institute (Pittsburgh), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), National Museum of American Art (Washington D.C.), Hirshorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington D.C.), the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Museum of Fine Art (Boston), Stedelijk van Abbemuseum at Eindhoven  (The Netherlands), and many others nationally and internationally. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2004.​​​​