John Wesley had accepted the commission to create the visual identity for The Armory Show 2006. Wesley was the fifth artist to define the image of the fair, which has become the world’s preeminent showcase for new art by living artists. For the eighth edition of The Armory Show, which was held March 10-13, 2006 in New York City, Wesley’s erotic drawings of women and pop icons dominated the visual materials. Best known initially as a pop artist, compared to Lichtenstein and Warhol and championed by Donald Judd who featured his work at The Chinati Foundation, Wesley’s figurative paintings and drawings remain sharp and innovative after a career of nearly fifty years.
Wesley began painting in the 1960’s. His uniformly flat work plays with comic book and mythical characters, depicting athletes, animals, the female form and intimate moments. He has been featured in fifty-seven solo exhibitions, including eight museum shows at PS1 Contemporary Art Center, Fogg Art Musuem and Stedelijk Museum, among others. This year he received the Skowhegan Medal for Artistic Achievement in Painting. A retrospective of his paintings on paper opens at the Krefeld Kunstmuseum in Krefeld, Germany in October 2005. He is represented exclusively by Fredericks & Freiser Gallery (New York).
John Wesley, Untitled, 2004
Courtesy of Fredericks & Freiser, New York