This exhibition brings together the extraordinary works of John Wilde and his student, Flora Langlois—two remarkable artists whose creations reveal both fascinating connections and distinctive individual visions. Wilde, a Wisconsin native who became one of the state’s most influential artists, and Langlois, born to a family of Costa Rican artists and intellectuals who later established herself in Wisconsin, both mastered the delicate balance between meticulous technical precision and dreamlike imagination.
Wilde, a master draftsman in silverpoint, created elegant drawings and fantastical, detailed, colorful paintings. Drawing inspiration from Salvador Dali and Northern Renaissance masters like Bosch and Grunewald, he transformed the familiar Midwestern down-to-earthness with Renaissance precision and surrealist sensibility. Langlois, inspired by her love of nature and her native Costa Rica, wove natural elements into metaphorical worlds where seeds take human form and mysterious figures emerge from meticulously rendered forests. Animals inhabit her carefully crafted fictional environments, particularly forests that serve as containers for countless untold stories.
Both artists rejected prevailing artistic movements of their time, instead creating deeply personal visual languages that explore the boundaries between reality and fantasy, the conscious and unconscious, the revealed and concealed. Their works, displayed together for the first time, invite viewers to journey through enchanted worlds where the ordinary becomes extraordinary and nature reveals its most mysterious dimensions.
John Wilde (1919-2006)
John Wilde stands as one of Wisconsin’s most influential artists. After earning his Bachelor of Science in Art from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1942, he returned to serve as a professor at his alma mater until his retirement in 1982.
A key figure in the American “Magic Realism” movement, Wilde masterfully blended Midwestern oddness with Renaissance precision. This artistic style, popularized by Museum of Modern Art curator Alfred Barr in 1942, captured the mysterious and fantastical elements emerging in post-war American art. Wilde rejected both romantic Midwestern landscapes and Abstract Expressionism, instead pushing formal realism into the realm of the unconscious and intimate.
As a painter, printmaker, and exceptional draftsman, Wilde invites viewers into his personal dreamworld where the ordinary becomes extraordinary. His silverpoint technique achieves remarkable depth and richness rarely seen in a medium known for its delicacy and detail.
Wilde’s artistic legacy is preserved in over 100 paintings and drawings held by prestigious institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, Walker Art Center, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, among many others.
To view work by John Wilde click HERE.
Flora Langlois (b. 1927)
Flora Langlois was born in 1927 to a family of artists and intellectuals in San José, Costa Rica. Her artistic journey began under the guidance of her mother, developing a passion that would shape her life between Costa Rica and the United States.
Flora Langlois, a devoted nature enthusiast, infuses her art with the joyous energy of her native Costa Rica. Through careful observation of natural elements, she transforms ordinary objects into fantastic beings and scenes. In her meticulously detailed works, seeds take human form, and magical figures blend into elaborate forest landscapes filled with animals. Animals inhabit these meticulously rendered fictional environments, particularly forests that serve as containers for countless stories. Though whimsical in appearance, her complex compositions always maintain an element of mystery, with something deliberately concealed from the viewer’s eye.
After completing her undergraduate studies in California, Langlois returned to Costa Rica to assist her father with chapel mosaics before pursuing graduate education. In 1953, she settled in Wisconsin, studying under notable artists including Alfred Sessler and John Wilde, receiving her Masters in Fine Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Both John Wilde and her mother became her primary influences, shaping the style, themes, and techniques that defined her work. Langlois continued her artistic career in Wisconsin until 2010, when she permanently returned to Costa Rica and established a studio in Escazu.
To view work by Flora Langlois click HERE