Evelyn Wilson Sculpture on Exhibit

From October 9 through November 4, the Evelyn Wilson Sculpture Memorial Exhibition will be on display in the Romano Gallery, with a public reception on Thursday, October 12, from 7- 8 p.m.

This memorial exhibition commemorates the life and art of Evelyn Wilson, a longtime Blairstown resident whose ceramic sculptures convey a deep sympathy with and understanding of human nature. Small in scale, they are marked by an economy of detail and a stylized simplicity that heighten their emotional impact and universality. Wilson exhibited her sculpture extensively for over 45 years. It was the monumentality of her small sculptures that drew the attention of the late Henry Geldzahler, former curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, who wrote, “Her modeled figure groups, about sixteen inches in height, make no compromises as far as scale is concerned. One can well imagine them at full human scale, or even larger.”

Joanne Jaffe, the artist's daughter

For many years Wilson led a double life. Married to the painter Ben Wilson, she had a successful career in the cosmetics industry, where she was executive vice president of Faberge, president of Faberge France, and a designer for Revlon, among others. At the same time she was a frequently exhibiting sculptor, working abstractly. Her discovery of clay and figurative sculpture coincided with her retirement. During the ’90s, Wilson decided to illustrate some of her favorite literary works with her sculpture and produced several large series now in universities and museums in New York and New Jersey. Her Mother Goose series is in the Zimmerli Art Museum, and her Canterbury Tales and Iliad and Odyssey are at Rutgers University. Her Old Testament illustrations are on permanent display at the museum of Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion in Manhattan. Wilson moved to California after her husband of 65 years passed away. Until her 90th birthday, she continued to work every day for several hours. Updated 10/16/06

The Romano Gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; other hours by appointment. For more information on this exhibit, please call (908) 362-6121.

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