Flair - June 1950

Both artists represented on these pages live and work in Madison, Wisconsin, both will have New York shows this month at the Edwin Hewitt Gallery. Although each has sold some work to private collectors, each is probably the largest collector of the other’s work. Dudley Huppler (opposite) is a protégé of poet Marianne Moore. All his drawings are in black and white, done with a Parker 51 pen, and birds and eggs are his overwhelmingly favorite subjects. Part of a series of Huppler-designed bird and egg postcards appears opposite. Eggs reappear in Huppler’s personal life. He likes them for their symmetry, their “hidden meaning,” carries boiled eggs in pocket, says he hands them out to hungry friends. John Wilde shares Huppler’s interest in birds and eggs, is an equally meticulous artist. His self-portrait (below) is titled Myself, illustrating how a square, with points AH, is always in my vision. Wilde has a wife and child, teaches drawing at the University of Wisconsin and has never ventured to New York.