Gary John Gresl

I joined Wisconsin Painters & Sculptors the winter of 1983-84. Chuck Wickler was President at the time, Valerie Christel, Vice President. As I recall there were under 200 members state-wide. During the first year I became Treasurer, and after Chuck’s term ended, since Valerie began working as Assistant Director at the new Walker’s Point Center for the Arts, I became President. Of course, we only had one state wide organization, not yet 3 chapters until 1990, with some members being at considerably long distances outside of our meeting place in Milwaukee. In 1990 we created the then named Northeast Chapter and the South Central Chapter. I worked with our pro bono lawyer, Fred Safer, to write the new clauses of our State Constitution to reflect the existence of 3 chapters, each with a certain degree of autonomy, but under the necessary control of the State Board and its officers which consisted of the 3 Chairs, one each from the 3 Chapters, with the State Board electing President and the other positions on the Board. Also during the 1980’s into the 90’s we originated the important Endowment Fund beginning with a few hundred dollars contributed by myself and Marie Mellot. We also renamed our previously existing biennial The Wisconsin Artists Biennial, rather then the earlier tradition of using a numerical sequence, such as Biennial 61, then 2 years later, Biennial 62, etc. I have served 3 terms as President of WP&S / WVA, one of those a single year Presidency when the existing President gave up her position and I was elected to replace her. I have been the Chair and/or Cochair of the Wisconsin Biennial at least 3 times, and also part of numerous working groups for years that did all the work to create each Biennial. Leading up to and after the successful WP&S / WVA Centennial 1900 Exhibit which was held at the West Bend Museum of Art …soon to become named MOWA, the Museum of Wisconsin Art, I was also active in various capacities including organizing the WP and S archives at the Milwaukee Public Library, plus making an attempt to create a venue for Wisconsin artists in the Old Coast Guard Station on Milwaukee’s coastline. In the early 2000’s, beside exhibiting my assemblage sculptures, I approached Tom Lidtke, Director of the Museum of Wisconsin Art, with an outline for what would become The “Wisconsin Visual Art Lifetime Achievement Awards”. Tom and I also approached the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, which agreed to become the 3rd entity organizing and producing the annual Wisconsin Visual Art Achievement Awards. Later in time I was honored to receive one of those Lifetime Visual Art Awards.

For decades our Biennial had always been held in different professional museums and galleries such as the Anderson Art Center, Kenosha; the Rahr-West Museum, Manitowoc; The Porter Butts Gallery, UW Madison Union Bldg.; the Fine Arts Gallery at UW Milwaukee; the Neville Public Museum, Green Bay, and the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette Un. Campus. We had always hoped for a permanent venue for our Biennials, and working with Tom Lidtke and subsequently, Laurie Winters, we established a relationship for ongoing Biennial exhibits exclusively held in MOWA. The Visual Art Awards also became a biennial event, rather than annual, operating in association with the Wisconsin Biennial, and held in MOWA.

In my personal art practice I committed to professional practice as an artist in the early 1980’s, recalling interests from my formal art education classes and my personal reading of 20th C art history. I began painting geometric and gestural forms on relatively large canvases, some of which I titled “Protoforms”. I also began a series of photographs focused on a single red painted 2×4 board, approx 40″ H, placed upright in many and varied places, called “The Red Board Series”, purely ephemeral sculptures. Those were my first “Pop-Ups” which I photographed as site specific works, and which later broadened to include more artifacts well beyond a single red board. I also served for several years as one of the “artists in residence” for the Lynden Sculpture Garden, over time exhibiting about 20 large scale ephemeral outdoor assemblage sculptures. In the 80’s I created quite a number of geometric paintings having a red plane/stroke on various painted backgrounds with painted patterns. In fact, the most simple of them, a quickly painted large red stroke on a white background, was accepted into the Wisconsin Biennial at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. Incidentally, later, when I was involved in creating large assemblage sculptures, I was invited into two of MOCA’s newly created Wisconsin Triennials and won a first prize in a Wisconsin Artists Biennial held at the Haggerty Museum. I also earned a 3 month Residency in the Kohler Pottery, Kohler WI and was fortunate to receive a Mary Nohl Fellowship Award, which included cash and an exhibit of my assemblage work. In 2025 I was given a two month solo exhibit in the Rahr-West Museum, Manitowoc. At this writing I am currently moving my studio.

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