WILLIAM T. WILEY FOUNDATION
William T. Wiley (1937–2021) was an American artist associated with the UC Davis Art faculty and the celebrated Bay Area Funk Art movement. This is the official website of the William T. Wiley Foundation, dedicated to furthering the legacy of Wiley and promoting arts education.
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Sept. 24, 2025 - Jan. 29, 2025
July 7, 2025 - Sept 3, 2025
​WILLIAM T. WILEY AT THE HAIGHT STREET ART CENTER, San Francisco, CA
FURTHER TRIENNIAL, San Francisco, CA
"THE MUSICAL WORLD OF WILLIAM T. WILEY"
COMING IN APRIL 2027
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This inaugural show for the William T. Wiley Foundation will be part of the Bay Area FURTHER TRIENNIAL in 2027. The exhibition will feature artworks, music, video and archival materials focused on Wiley's musical influences and collaborations Wiley engaged in over the course of his long career. Wiley is best known as a painter and sculptor, but he was also a songwriter and musician who played folk guitar, Blues harmonica, and even mastered circular breathing on his homemade didgeridoos. From attending the San Francisco Art Institute with fellow student Jerry Garcia, collaborating with minimalist composer Steve Reich, country rocker Terry Allen, and Blues guitarist Mike Henderson, to his paintings and sculptures devoted to musical icons, including Muddy Waters, Marvin Gaye and Stephane Grappelli, Wiley inhabited a deep musical connection to his artwork throughout his career.​
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MANETTI SHREM MUSEUM, UC DAVIS, Davis, CA
"BACKSTORY: DIGITIZING THE MUSEUM COLLECTION"
JANUARY 21 - MAY 2, 2026
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A working digitization laboratory and open storage featuring hundreds of works from UC Davis’ Fine Arts Collection, this exhibition invites visitors to see how artworks are researched, documented and photographed as part of the museum’s 10th anniversary digitization initiative.
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More than 80 works by artists such as Ansel Adams, Robert Arneson, Deborah Butterfield, Roy De Forest, Richard Diebenkorn, Kota Ezawa, Mike Henderson, Stephen Kaltenbach, Giorgio Morandi, Bruce Nauman, Roland Petersen, Jaune Quick-To-See Smith, Wayne Thiebaud and William T. Wiley will be on view throughout the exhibition.
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WILLIAM T. WILEY AT THE WHITNEY MUSEUM, New York, New York
'SIXTIES SURREAL"
SEPTEMBER 24 - JANUARY 19, 2026
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The works on view here are composed of forms and materials that evoke the sensual feelings of having and exploring a body of flesh and bones—from the erotic to the anxious. Many of the artists were featured in two 1967 exhibitions: Eccentric Abstraction in New York and Funk in Berkeley, California. Eccentric Abstraction, curated by Lucy Lippard, presented artists, including Bruce Nauman, Don Potts, Louise Bourgeois, and Eva Hesse, whose work was rigorously abstract yet retained a sensuous quality. The artists whose work was shown by the curator Peter Selz in Funk, among them Jeremy Anderson, Ken Price, and Franklin Williams, were more explicit in their references to guts, fingers, and anthropomorphic forms. The objects the Funk artists produced may seem innocuous at first glance, but the subtle protrusions and openings of works such as Ken Price’s S. L. Green (1963) or Franklin Williams’s Untitled (1966) evoke both the anxieties and the ecstasies of our physical being. Looking beyond these historic exhibitions, this gallery brings together artists from across the country who worked with unorthodox materials to create objects of embodied abstraction.
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"Here, the 1960s are surprising, powerful, and all over the place. The surreal part of the show’s title is a bit of a misnomer. This isn’t Freud-Breton-Dalí but visionary improvisation, erotic caricature, countercultural magic, fevered politics, and psychedelia. The usual suspects are here: Warhol, Ruscha, Oldenburg, and a great visionary painting by Robert Smithson. But this ends up turning the decade inside out, putting half-forgotten works and received histories cheek by jowl. Many of these artists have been sidelined. Chicago Imagists such as Barbara Rossi and Roger Brown are here; Jeremy Anderson, Joan Brown, William T. Wiley, and Mel Casas too." -- VULTURE
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WILLIAM T. WILEY AT THE HOSFELT GALLERY, San Francisco. CA
"MUSIN' & MUSSIN' WITH THE MASTERS"
MAY 22 - JULY 3, 2025
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One of the most innovative and influential artists to come out of the Bay Area, William T. Wiley (1937-2021), used wordplay, virtuosic painting and his encyclopedic knowledge of art history to address current social, political and environmental issues. In this exhibition of paintings on canvas and paper from the 1990s, Wiley employs quotations from Bosch and Bruegel, Warhol and Whistler, Mondrian and Manet, as he reflects on the absurdity of the human condition.
Though his signature style was wholly original and always entirely recognizable, Wiley audaciously and gleefully "stole" from both his predecessors and his peers. Sometimes he was reverent; sometimes he was cheeky. Always, he was empathetic, in his open-ended investigations of the moral responsibility of the global citizen.
Though 30 years old, the works selected for this exhibition grapple with many of the same topics that are in our current headlines — environmental degradation, inequality, the horrors of war, and governments that fail their people.
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WILLIAM T. WILEY AT PARKER GALLERY, Los Angeles, CA
'FABLES"
APRIL 26 - JUNE 14, 2025
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GO TO LINK HERE
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Parker Gallery is proud to present Fables, our third solo exhibition with William T. Wiley (1937–2021). Throughout his sixty-year career, the artist addressed some of the most urgent social, political and environmental issues of his time, with a distinctive blend of wit and wisdom. This exhibition brings together a group of rarely seen steel sculptures and related drawings from 1982 to 1985, produced at Lippincott’s LLC, a renowned artist-focused fabrication firm established in Connecticut in 1966 to produce large-scale works, among those by Ellsworth Kelly, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Louise Nevelson, Keith Haring and Jean Dubuffet.
Bringing his characteristic storytelling to cut and welded forms, Wiley repurposed and transformed sheets of industry into objects full of symbolic charge. The Absence of Angel Wings for Crow and Mask, both from 1982, incorporate common motifs and subjects within his oeuvre, like the infinity symbol and question marks, as well as animals and nature, to create narrative arcs whose interpretation is decidedly open-ended—at times opaque—yet simultaneously revealing of the human condition.
The wall sculptures and pedestal works in the exhibition are inspired by Michael Hannon’s Venerations & Fables (1982), a book of poetry featuring philosophical entries written from the viewpoint of animals and plant life. Wiley often incorporated language into his works, using text variously sourced from the many books or magazines he had read, or from snippets he heard on the radio, and just as often, from his own personal musings.
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WILLIAM T. WILEY AT MASSIMODECARLO, London, England.
"NOT TO NEAR, NOT TOO FAR"
JANUARY 16 - FEBRUARY 17, 2024
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MASSIMODECARLO is pleased to present Not Too Near, Not Too Far, a duo exhibition by the pioneering artists Mike Henderson and William T. Wiley, curated by Dr. Francesca Wilmott. Following an initial encounter at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) in 1970, the two artists shared interwoven artistic trajectories. During their fifty-year friendship, they collaborated in music and on films and exchanged ideas related to painting, politics, teaching, and philosophy.
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Embracing the experimental approach of the revered University of California, Davis art programme (Wiley taught at UC Davis from 1962 to 1973, and Henderson from 1970 to 2012), Henderson and Wiley freely used different materials and approaches to suit their needs. Both artists were sceptical of strict ideologies, preferring to forge individual artistic paths. Not Too Near, Not Too Far charts encounters and exchanges between them, particularly within each artist’s movements between figuration and abstraction. The exhibition’s title encapsulates their symbiotic but distinct artistic practices and is taken from Henderson’s 2017 painting of the same name.
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WILLIAM T. WILEY AT PARKER GALLERY, Los Angeles, CA
"NOTHING IS TO BE DONE FOR WILLIAM T. WILEY"
JUNE 12 - AUGUST 6, 2022
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William Allan, Robert Arneson, Melissa Brown, Deborah Butterfield, Ann Craven, Jimmie Durham, Llyn Foulkes, Piero Gilardi, Peter Halley, Hugh Hayden, Mary Heilmann, Mike Henderson, Robert Hudson, Ed Kienholz, Christine Sun Kim, Calvin Marcus, Ree Morton, Bruce Nauman, Laura Owens, Maija Peeples-Bright, Peter Saul, Nancy Shaver, Carlos Villa, H.C. Westermann, William T. Wiley, Sue Williams, Amy Yao
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Parker Gallery is proud to present a group exhibition in tribute to the late William T. Wiley (1937–2021). The exhibition features a constellation of artists, including intimates, acquaintances and many without personal connection to Wiley, bound together by their enigmatic and curious spirits. The artists include childhood friends (William Allan and Robert Hudson), fellow professors, colleagues and co-conspirators (Robert Arneson, Mike Henderson, Ed Kienholz, Peter Saul, Carlos Villa, H.C. Westermann), and former students (Deborah Butterfield, Mary Heilmann, Bruce Nauman, Maija Peeples-Bright), alongside contemporary artists representing several generations of kindred spirits (Melissa Brown, Ann Craven, Jimmie Durham, Llyn Foulkes, Piero Gilardi, Peter Halley, Hugh Hayden, Christine Sun Kim, Calvin Marcus, Ree Morton, Laura Owens, Nancy Shaver, Sue Williams, Amy Yao).
What is to be done for William T. Wiley? The question was originally proposed by the artist himself, as an invitation to others to create an artwork on his behalf. Not an artwork that he would ascribe his name to, but one with his name inscribed on its surface. The artworks he requested were to be “a plaque or plans for one...which would read ‘Nothing is to be done for Wm. T. Wiley.’” At the time he wrote to his peers, Wiley was seeking a new approach and perhaps anticipating a fresh perspective from an outsider’s point of view. Of the three works received in response to Wiley’s proposal (from Robert Arneson, Bruce Nauman and H.C. Westermann), those by Westermann and Arneson are included in this exhibition, shown together for the first time. The artists who responded to Wiley’s provocation included: a colleague on faculty at U.C. Davis (Arneson), a recent graduate student (Nauman) and an older artist that Wiley greatly admired (Westermann).
Wiley’s laid-back, anything-goes, pun-riddled approach to life and art left an impression on those he encountered. And his influence continues to resonate. This exhibition also features works realized specifically for the occasion by artists who did not know Wiley personally, such as Melissa Brown and Peter Halley.
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WILLIAM T. WILEY AT THE BOLINAS MUSEUM, Bolinas, CA
'WILLIAM T. WILEY: & SO..."
FEBRUARY 5 - APRIL 3, 2022
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A true maverick, Marin artist William T. Wiley (1937 – 2021) created thought-provoking art with an idiosyncratic style that defied classification for over 50 years. Incorporating layers of narrative with a host of recurring symbols and characters, he expressed an enigmatic imagination, often calling attention to critical issues of the times through drawing, watercolor, paint, found objects, printmaking, film, and performance art. Rife with pointed societal commentary and witty personal musings, this exhibition brings together works dating back to 1970 that illuminate broad interests ranging from war, politics, the economy, and environmental concerns to literature, art world trends, Zen philosophy, and more.
Wiley attended the San Francisco Art Institute (then the California School of Fine Arts). Soon after graduating in 1962, he began to teach at UC Davis, where he enjoyed a long and colorful career, inspiring and collaborating with such notable artists, students, and friends as Bruce Nauman, Robert Hudson, and Robert Arneson, who together would become anchors of the Bay Area Funk Art movement in the 1970s. In the late 1960s, Wiley purchased land in Woodacre along San Geronimo Creek, where he lived and worked for most of his long career. His work has been featured in museums across the nation and can be found in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; among others.
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WILLIAM T. WILEY AT MarinMOCA
"WHAT IS ART FOR?"
FEBRUARY 5 - MARCH 20, 2022
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MarinMOCA is showcasing the work of its artist members in an annual group exhibition entitled What Is Art For? (February 5 – March 20). This year’s event honors the spirit of Marin’s legendary artist William T. Wiley (1937-2021) by celebrating the natural alignment of this all-inclusive event with Wiley’s belief in the democratization of the exhibition space.
What Is Art For? refers to a specific 1999 exhibition at the Oakland Museum of California. Wiley invited over 100 artists to exhibit, and it’s this same spirit of inclusiveness that makes this annual exhibition at MarinMOCA such a success.
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“The spirit of generosity and inclusivity is one of Wiley’s legacies to the regional artistic community,” comments Amy Owen, executive director of MarinMOCA.
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What Is Art For? not only underscores the value of community but offers artists meaningful exhibition experience as part of their professional development, which is key to the mission of MarinMOCA. According to MarinMOCA, the connection to the theme of Wiley’s work invites us to consider the value the arts have in our community as a way to discuss, document, imagine, and console during these difficult times.
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Wiley, who lived his later years in Novato, studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and was invited to teach at U.C. Davis from 1962-1973, alongside artists Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest, Manuel Neri, and Wayne Thiebaud. According to curator Renny Pritikin (You See: The Early Years of the UC Davis Studio Art Faculty), Wiley and his peers became associated with the Funk Movement, which got the name because they often include jazz music at their exhibitions and gallery openings. These artists moved away from abstraction towards figurative art and, in all mediums, encouraged the development of a unique visual vocabulary, often expressed with wit and humor.
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“This type of group show reflects issues and concepts relevant to this time and place within this particular community, through the lens of contemporary art,” Owen said.
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WILLIAM T. WILEY AT HOSFELT GALLERY, San Francisco, CA
"MONUMENTAL"
SEPTEMBER 7 - OCTOBER 16, 2021
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Enormous paintings comprise the heart of an exhibition honoring the colossus William T. Wiley, who died on April 25, 2021 at age 83. An audacious visionary, Wiley was an oracle, combining imagery, symbols, and wordplay to articulate social and environmental angst.
For nearly sixty years, Wiley (who was referred to by this single-word moniker by his family, friends, and professionally) distinguished himself as a renegade American artist whose interests were rooted in liberal social and environmental concerns as well as philosophy and spirituality. Though frequently political, his work adamantly resists classification into movements or stylistic trends. Wiley’s practice ranged from drawing, painting in watercolor and acrylic, sculpture, and assemblage to printmaking, filmmaking, and performance. Combining found objects, personal symbols, enigmatic texts, as well as references to art history, popular culture, and current events, he developed a distinctive visual vocabulary that allowed for variety, invention, and his own subtle mysticism.
But the defining hallmark of Wiley’s work is the text and wordplay that accompany nearly every piece he made. From stream-of-consciousness rambles to pointed critiques, he used humor, puns, sarcasm, and double entendre to address the most consequential issues of our time.
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Joann Moser, curator of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, wrote in a 2009 retrospective catalogue, “Wiley has created a body of work that anticipated such important developments as installation art, audience participation, a revival of interest in drawing, as well as the use of humor and language as significant aspects of contemporary art.”
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WILLIAM T. WILEY AT THE DI ROSA CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY ART
FORT FOOEY: WILEY IN THE STUDIO
AUGUST 20 - OCTOBER 31, 2021
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Step inside the studio of the late William T. Wiley. Fort Phooey: Wiley in the Studio recreates the sights and sounds of his iconic studio—a meeting place for generations of Bay Area artists—combining over fifty original works from di Rosa’s collection with archival objects on loan from the artist’s estate. The “Fort Phooey” part of the exhibition title is taken from a little-known work in the di Rosa collection titled “Fort Phooey Mandala.” Wiley created the mandala as a meditative exercise in his studio, and he also referred to his studio as “Fort Phooey.”
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Wiley’s Marin County studio was perhaps his greatest work of art. Densely layered with words, images and objects that meandered into his work and back out again, it was nothing less than an immersive assemblage. “Being in the studio was like entering into a Wiley artwork,” explains curator Kate Eilertsen. “The effect could be dizzying. Every surface was covered with scrawled wordplay, found objects and other elements of his distinctive visual vocabulary.”
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Inviting visitors into Wiley’s studio, the exhibition draws attention to the legacy of his artistic practice. “Wiley’s studio practice—rooted in Zen mysticism and an ethos of open-ended play—was imitated by artists ranging from Bruce Nauman to Deborah Butterfield,” states Eilertsen. “To understand his profound impact, it is necessary to grapple with the legacy of his practice as well as the work itself.”
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The exhibition is both immersive and participatory, and will include such details as Wiley’s final painting he was working on at the time of his death earlier this year; his workbench; photographs of him with friends and family; works by artists who influenced Wiley’s work including Wally Hedrick; musical instruments he encouraged visitors to play when they visited; National Public Radio (NPR) live via radio; and objects such as chalkboards and dunce caps that often appeared in his two-dimensional and three-dimensional work. Visitors will be prompted to create their own artworks and add them to a community wall inside the exhibition space.