About the artist
John von Wicht (1888–1970) was a German-American painter, muralist, graphic artist, and mosaic artist, known for his abstract expressionist works. Born Johannes von Wicht on February 3, 1888, in Malente, Germany, he began his apprenticeship at the age of seventeen in a painting and decorating workshop, where he drew from nature in his spare time.
In 1909–1910, he studied applied arts at the private school of the Grand Duke of Hesse in Darmstadt. With a three-year scholarship, he continued his education at the Royal School of Fine and Applied Arts in Berlin, where he learned lithography, mosaics, and stained glass, earning his Bachelor of Arts in 1912.
Von Wicht was wounded during World War I and spent his recovery time working on book design and illustration work. Due to economic difficulties after the war, he emigrated to the United States in 1923 and settled in Brooklyn Heights, New York. There he found work at a lithography firm and as a stained glass and mosaic craftsman.
In 1936 he became a naturalized American citizen and was hired by the mural department of the Federal Art Project/WPA. He worked with artists such as Stuart Davis, Byron Browne and Louis Schanker on a mural for radio station WNYC. This mural is currently on long-term loan to the Brooklyn Public Library.
Von Wicht combined geometric abstraction with intense color in his paintings. In the late 1930s he exhibited with the American Abstract Artists group and the Federation of Modern Painters and Sculptors. His first solo exhibition was held in 1939 at the Theodor A. Kohn Gallery in New York.
During World War II, von Wicht served as captain of a supply barge, delivering food to army ships in New York Harbor. This experience influenced his abstract works, which began to feature harbor themes. In the 1950s, his colorful geometric abstractions evolved into looser, expressionistic forms.
In 1954, von Wicht received the first of twelve annual residencies at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. He exhibited his prints regularly with the New York Painter-Printmakers and the 14 Painter-Printmakers group. In 1959, the Galerie Internationale d'Art Contemporaine in Paris organized a traveling exhibition of his work. In the 1960s, von Wicht purchased a cottage in Mallorca and divided his time between there and the MacDowell Colony.
John von Wicht died on January 22, 1970 in Brooklyn, New York. His work is included in collections including the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the British Museum in London, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, the Syracuse University Art Museum, the Library of Congress, the National Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa in Wellington, and the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts.
