John Wilde’s Art Featured at Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, by Steve Ehle

John Wilde was a good neighbor and fine friend to many in the Cooksville area, as well as in Evansville.  Those who knew him no doubt saw a quiet, unassuming man with a gentle wit and an appreciation for all things natural and beautiful.            

But those who may have known him better, those who knew his past accomplishments as a respected professor at UW-Madison and as an internationally known artist who was a part of the so-called “magic realist” movement in art circles, would understand why one of Wisconsin’s foremost museum galleries is now featuring many of his finest and least seen artwork.           

From June 13 to September 6, the Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA) in West Bend is devoting considerable space and time to a special Wilde exhibit. “Wilde’s Wildes: A Very Private Collection” includes approximately 80 paintings and drawings, most of which had hung or had been stored in John and Shirley Wilde’s Cooksville area home.            

The exhibit includes some of John’s early works as a student at UW-Madison and follows his personal art history to just a couple years before his death. Many of the sketches and paintings depict John himself, as well as Shirley. And, of course, there are framed pieces of their beloved Corgies – Banjo, Bugs, Beans and Bryn.           

 John died in 2006. Shirley, his wife of 46 years, died earlier this year. Since Shirley’s death, their respective children gathered most of the artwork that their parents retained in their home for themselves and provided the collection to the MOWA for this unique exhibit.           

 John and his first wife, Helen, lived in Evansville from the early 1950s to the midsixties. Helen died in 1966. John and Shirley married in 1969 and lived in their Cooksville area home until their deaths. John, Helen and Shirley are buried next to each other in the Cooksville Cemetery. Between them, they had five children.  Both John and Shirley served on the Board of the Historic Cooksville Trust, Inc. until their deaths.            

 In the foreword to a 66-page full-color exhibit catalogue compiled and written by exhibit curator Graeme Reid, MOWA’s Executive Director/CEO, Laurie Winters writes:           
 “Wildes’s Wildes: A Very Private Collection celebrates the private collection of John Wilde (1919-2006), one of the leading artists of the American Surrealism movement. Over seven decades, Wilde created a collection of the own paintings and drawings, works that easily could have found homes in museums or private collections but that he retained instead for his own enjoyment. Wilde’s Wildes recreates the artist’s collection, which includes paintings and drawings from every decade and phase of his long career as well as some of his earliest works in the late 1930s.”           

At the June 18 exhibit opening, curator Reid took attendees through the second floor gallery devoted to John’s works and explained how the exhibit was compiled and provided an anecdotal narrative to John’s life and work. Later, Reid made a formal expanded presentation for those gathered for the opening. Reid has been invited to repeat his Wilde slide presentation program at a venue in Evansville.           

 For more information on the Wilde exhibit at MOWA, visit the museum’s website at www.wisconsinart.org. The Wilde’s Wildes: A Very Private Collection catalogue is available for purchase from the MOWA Shop at a cost of $58 and can be ordered online, or it can be downloaded free of charge from MOWA’s website.          

 Six of John’s works are on permanent display at UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum, and his painting “15 Cooksvillians” (1996) has been donated to the Chasen. His large 1997 hand-colored print “15 Cooksvillians” hangs in many Cooksville area homes.

The Evansville Grove Society and The Theodore Robinson Society are offering a special program on September 29th at Creekside Place in Evansville to honor Evansville’s surrealist artist John Wilde, former Art Professor at the University of WisconsinMadison.  Graeme Reid, Director of Collections and Exhibitions, Museum of Wisconsin Art, will be the speaker. The program compliments a special exhibit entitled Wilde’s Wildes that is ongoing until September 6th at the Museum of Wisconsin Art, West Bend.   The address for Creekside Place is 102 Maple Street, Evansville. The event will begin at 5:45 pm with an open bar and informal reminiscences by friends, relatives, and associates of John Wilde and his two wives. The program will begin about 6:30 pm. Contact Jennifer Ehle, 608-302-1722, jenniferehle1@gmail.com for further information.

Cooksville Christmas in Summer Aug 1, 1:30 pm

From a recent Facebook post:
Would you welcome a chill in the air? Put yourself in a December state of mind on August 1st for the 3rd annual Cooksville Christmas in Summer pageant starting at 1:30 pm at the schoolhouse. The talented village children are hard at work on their all-new show, with a little help from the Wild Rumpus Circus of Mazomanie. Here's a hint of what you may see....

John Wilde’s Art Featured at Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend, by Steve Ehle

         

Shirley and John Wilde shown in 2006 at the Cooksville Commons. (Photo by Steve Ehle)

   John Wilde was a good neighbor and fine friend to many in the Cooksville area, as well as in Evansville.  Those who knew him no doubt saw a quiet, unassuming man with a gentle wit and an appreciation for all things natural and beautiful.

            But those who may have known him better, those who knew his past accomplishments as a respected professor at UW-Madison and as an internationally known artist who was a part of the so-called “magic realist” movement in art circles, would understand why one of Wisconsin’s foremost museum galleries is now featuring many of his finest and least seen artwork.

            From June 13 to September 6, the Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA) in West Bend is devoting considerable space and time to a special Wilde exhibit. “Wilde’s Wildes: A Very Private Collection” includes approximately 80 paintings and drawings, most of which had hung or had been stored in John and Shirley Wilde’s Cooksville area home.

           

The cover of the catalog published for the "Wilde's Wildes" exhibit show available for viewing at the

 Museum of Wisconsin Art.

The exhibit includes some of John’s early works as a student at UW-Madison and follows his personal art history to just a couple years before his death. Many of the sketches and paintings depict John himself, as well as Shirley. And, of course, there are framed pieces of their beloved Corgies – Banjo, Bugs, Beans and Bryn.

            John died in 2006. Shirley, his wife of 46 years, died earlier this year. Since Shirley’s death, their respective children gathered most of the artwork that their parents retained in their home for themselves and provided the collection to the MOWA for this unique exhibit.

            John and his first wife, Helen, lived in Evansville from the early 1950s to the mid-sixties. Helen died in 1966. John and Shirley married in 1969 and lived in their Cooksville area home until their deaths. John, Helen and Shirley are buried next to each other in the Cooksville Cemetery. Between them, they had five children.  Both John and Shirley served on the Board of the Historic Cooksville Trust, Inc. until their deaths.

             In the foreword to a 66-page full-color exhibit catalogue compiled and written by exhibit curator Graeme Reid, MOWA’s Executive Director/CEO, Laurie Winters writes:

            “Wildes’s Wildes: A Very Private Collection celebrates the private collection of John Wilde (1919-2006), one of the leading artists of the American Surrealism movement. Over seven decades, Wilde created a collection of the own paintings and drawings, works that easily could have found homes in museums or private collections but that he retained instead for his own enjoyment. Wilde’s Wildes recreates the artist’s collection, which includes paintings and drawings from every decade and phase of his long career as well as some of his earliest works in the late 1930s.”

            At the June 18 exhibit opening, curator Reid took attendees through the second floor gallery devoted to John’s works and explained how the exhibit was compiled and provided an anecdotal narrative to John’s life and work. Later, Reid made a formal expanded presentation for those gathered for the opening. Reid has been invited to repeat his Wilde slide presentation program at a venue in Evansville. An announcement will be made later this summer regarding time and place for this event.

            For more information on the Wilde exhibit at MOWA, visit the museum’s website at www.wisconsinart.org. The Wilde’s Wildes: A Very Private Collection catalogue is available for purchase from the MOWA Shop at a cost of $58 and can be ordered online, or it can be downloaded free of charge from MOWA’s website.

           

A John Wilde painting of Steve Ehle and his dog Davey painted in 2004.

Six of John’s works are on permanent display at UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum, and his painting “15 Cooksvillians” (1996) has been donated to the Chasen. His large 1997 hand-colored print “15 Cooksvillians” hangs in many Cooksville area homes, as do John’s portraits of local friends Steve Ehle, Michael Saternus, and Bill and Joyce Wartmann.

Cooksville’s Artists and Artisans, Part Two: Leila Dow, by Larry Reed

The Village of Cooksville had a reputation for being a “cultured little burg” in the 19^th century and on into the 20^th.  Although the village’s popular “Opera House” (the second floor of Van Patten’s Meat Market) burned down in 1893, other venues for local and traveling performers remained. The Lyceum Auditorium, used mainly as a private schoolroom for higher learning on the second floor of the Van Vleck Farm Implement Factor, was available for various entertainments. So were the Schoolhouse, the Masonic Lodge’s meeting room above the General Store, and the basement parlor room of the 1879 Cooksville Congregational Church.

Some of Cooksville’s artisans were material artists, creating pottery, paintings and weavings. Several wrote poetry and short stories, and some were talented musicians performing in homes and churches in the village and in nearby communities.

One of Cooksville’s talented early painters was Leila Aileen Dow (1864-1930).

Leila Dow (1864-1930), date unknown

Dow Farm west of Cooksville, c.1873

Leila was one of the daughters of the prominent farmer John Thayer Dow (1831-1917), who lived in the historic Lovejoy-Dow House just west of the village and whose Dow’s Grove was a popular picnic area on the south side of the Badfish Creek. Dow farmed there from 1854 to 1882, and his diaries are detailed evidence of the daily activities of his family. (Another one of the talented Dow

Myrtle Helene Dow, c.1895

daughters, Myrtle Helene Dow, went on to become an actress in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where she married, and in London; however, there is no record of any of her performances in Cooksville or elsewhere.)

Leila Dow graduated from Madison’s Central High School and studied art at the University of Wisconsin in Madison and at the Art Institute of Chicago.  She taught art (china painting and oil painting) in Evansville and Madison schools, as well as in her studio in Madison, where she lived most of her life. In1894, she won art prizes at the Dane County Fair, and she was a busy “Teacher of drawing and painting,” according to her business card.

She spent many summers at Susan Porter’s home in Cooksville, where she painted landscapes and garden flowers in and around the village in the late 19th and early 20^th centuries. Many of her works were inspired by the gardens of Ralph Lorenzo Warner (1875-1941) and Miss Porter (1859-1939), who was her life-long friend.  One of her paintings is of the Cooksville Mill and Dam on the Badfish Creek.

 “Cooksville Mill,” by Leila Dow

(She gifted the painting to the James Roherty family that had worked on the Dow farm); others are of wooded and hilly landscapes and flowers such as squash blossoms and bright peonies. Her works were exhibited in Madison and Milwaukee.

“Squash Blossoms” by Leila Dow

“Peonies” by Leila Dow

“Landscape” by Leila Dow

Leila painted in a quick, impressionistic style with bright colors and loose brush strokes in oil or in her flowing watercolors, capturing an immediate impression of delicate light and color emanating from her natural subjects.  Several of her works, water colors and oil paintings—landscapes and flowers— remain in Cooksville; undoubtedly, others are in the Madison area. It is possible that Leila may have known one of America’s most important Impressionist painters, Theodore Robinson (1852-1896), a native of nearby Evansville, Wisconsin, who spent much of his short life with the famous French Impressionist painters in France. (One of Robinson’s paintings was recently offered at auction in New York City for $700,000-$900,000.)

Importantly, Leila was one of the original organizers and charter members of the Madison Art Guild, which was begun about 1914.  Her obituary said she was an “artist, club leader”… with a “ready wit.”  After Leila died in Madison, many of her art works were sold to benefit the Art Guild. Her paintings remain as evidence of her artistic talents.

[The second in a series of stories about the artists and artisans of the Village of Cooksville.]

Cooksville’s Artists, Artisans, and Craftsmen: 1846 – 2015, Part One, by Larry Reed

Dorothy Kramer’s painting of Cooksville, 1955

Since its beginning, the little Village of Cooksville has been the home to a number of talented local artists and crafts men and women, more than its small size would seem to indicate. During the past 175 years, musicians, painters, singers, potters, weavers, writers, designers, architects and performers flourished and enjoyed practicing their arts in the small community.

Nearby towns occasionally teased Cooksville for being such a culturally active little village—and maybe for being a bit self-satisfied— with its lending library, a young folk’s reading club, a dancing class, a drama club that toured its productions around the area, and an eagerness to sing, act, fiddle and generally entertain one and all. The Evansville newspaper praised the village, “that little cross road burg—Cooksville, where they don’t do things by the halves.”

Certainly, it required many talents to live, survive and thrive in the wilds of the Wisconsin frontier in the 1840s and later. And just as certain, creative talents were essential to make pioneer life enjoyable and fulfilling for individuals and the whole community. This no doubt was a challenge because the talents had to be home-grown (or brought from the East) with very few, if any, existing cultural experiences, opportunities or teachers of the arts.

As Senator Daniel Webster apparently said (maybe to his Massachusetts friend Dr. John Porter, a founder of Cooksville): “Where tillage begins, other arts follow.”

Out of the mists of history—and from crumbling newspaper clippings, remembered stories and anecdotes, and from various works of art — has come knowledge of these creative efforts of Cooksville’s artisans, enough to acknowledge their contributions over the years.

Cooksville Dramatic Club broadsheet, 1873

Musical, oratorical and dramatic performances showed off their talents and were frequent in the 19^th century (without radio, movies, television and few traveling entertainers). Some products of their creative skills—paintings, pottery, weavings, writings— survive, fortunately, and have been handed down to the community via their families over the past two centuries.

Most of these creative Cooksville artists were self-taught amateurs, although some learned their skills later in the 19^th century with the help of talented teachers in nearby schools of higher learning or at the feet of other artists who arrived in the area. These talented Cooksvillians were noted in newspaper articles and diaries of the time, and undoubtedly there were other additional skillful, self-taught creative persons whose works may yet be discovered and appreciated.

Past village artists include such Cooksvillians as Ann Eliza Bacon Porter, perhaps the earliest, and Benjamin Hoxie, Leila Dow, Ralph Lorenzo Warner, Jack Robertson, Helen Porter, Dorothy and Arthur Kramer, E. Marvin Raney, Chester P. Holway, Michael Saternus and John Wilde.

Eliza Porter with daughter Helen, c.1848

Ann Eliza Bacon Porter

One of the earliest local artists was Ann Eliza Bacon Porter (she preferred to use “Eliza”). She arrived in Cooksville in 1847, following her newly-wedded husband, Joseph, who had platted the Village of Waucoma in 1846 (next to Cooksville) and was managing the Porter lands for his uncle Dr. John Porter who remained in Massachusetts.

Eliza’s precious piano, shipped from the East, arrived shortly after she did. She is credited with bringing music and dramatic oratory to the frontier village, among other accomplishments. She played the piano for the many guests she entertained in her home on the farm east of Cooksville and sang solos and with local groups with great frequency. Eliza’s piano was a great luxury on the frontier, of course, although soon a small portable melodeon (foot-powered organ) owned by Thomas Morgan served for church music at services in the village’s schoolhouse and elsewhere.

Eliza sang often. She sang at the close of the Town of Porter’s Civil War gathering in 1861 where the town formally resolved to defend the Union; she sang two patriotic songs on July 4, 1876, when Cooksville’s Centennial 100-foot flag pole was erected on the Public Square; and she seems to have sung at the drop of her bonnet not only in Cooksville but in many area communities and for many occasions, usually solo but also in choirs.

She was also a popular orator, reader and interpreter of literature and poetry, acting out all the parts. She also read religious works from the church pulpit, and she appears to have been an eager and much sought-after performance artist, referred to as an “elocutionist.” She also was a prolific writer of poems, reciting them in public, some of which have survived.

Eliza is credited with being the “moving spirit” behind a number of local musical productions, including the operettas “Pinafore” and “Laila.” She also gave piano lessons, not only to her children (her daughter Helen went on to become a professional piano teacher) but to other village children, who sometimes paid for their lessons with summer jobs on the Porter farm.

Eliza and Joseph Porter’s farmhouse, 1867

Mrs. Porter also was a tireless promoter of women’s rights. In 1880, according to a local newspaper, “Mrs. E.B. Porter, ever ready to say or do in word and work to promote and advance the cause of woman….presented (at a public Temperance meeting at the Church) a very forcible paper on ‘How can Woman best promote Temperance Work.’” Eliza also sat next to her husband in church services when she first joined him in Cooksville, which apparently dismayed some people.

Eliza was a tireless leader, supporter and participant in the community’s many cultural, social and political activities from her arrival in 1847 until her death in 1890. And she no doubt inspired many others to pursue, practice and enjoy the arts in Cooksville.

Stories of Ann Eliza Bacon Porter’s life in Cooksville, taken from her diary, can be found in the book, Choice Seeds in the Wilderness, by Lillian Russell Porter published in 1964, and can also be found in materials and photographs in the Cooksville Archives

[The first in a series of stories about Cooksville’s past artists and artisans.}

A Bridge Never Used: The Caledonia Springs Railroad Bridge Near Cooksville, by Larry Reed

Caledonia Springs Railroad Bridge, painting by Dorothy Kramer c.1950

As is well-known, the railroad never came to the historic Village of Cooksville. The “town that time forgot” was forgotten because a railway builder’s plans went bust.

This all happened—or, actually, didn’t happen— back in about 1857.

But there is a remnant near Cooksville dating from the 1850s when a railroad company did plan to come through the village: a small stone railroad bridge.  But plans went astray.

Caledonia Springs Railroad Bridge 1948, with Marvin Raney

The remnant (an archeological ruin, really) is the “Caledonia Springs Railroad Bridge” hidden in the wild, over-grown woods near dozens of equally hidden, bubbling “Caledonia Springs.” The old stone bridge, or culvert, arching over a small creek was constructed about 160 years ago as part of the plans to lay tracks through Cooksville on the way to Madison from Janesville.

On a recent spring day, a successful excursion led by the Makoutz family—Josh and Jill and their three young children, Ruby, Dylan and one-and-a-half-year-old Sawyer, carried by Dad—with pathfinder Josh in the lead hiked next to cornfields and through woods, brambles, and years of overgrowth to view the old stone bridge and the quiet burbling springs.

The bridge with Jill, Dylan, Josh and Sawyer, today

The Makoutz family lives near Cooksville on Caledonia Road in the handsome historic McCarthy stone house. When not guiding someone to the ruined stone bridge, Jill and Josh operate Bradbury’s, a highly-praised coffee house in Madison that specializes in delicious crepes, located at 127 N. Hamilton St., just off the Capitol Square.

Jill and Josh kindly offered to lead the way to this hidden historic site and natural springs south of Caledonia Road in the Town of Porter, not far from Cooksville. They’d hiked into the ravines several times before.

Town of Porter 1858 map with the proposed railroad

Not many details are known about the history of the small Caledonia Springs railroad bridge. Who hauled those huge stones there? And who laid them up like an ancient Roman archway, and why didn’t the planned railway ever cross it?

Many railroad companies had quickly formed in southern Wisconsin in the mid-19^th century (and some had quickly failed), and this new transportation technology was heavily invested in by local landowners and others. Successful railroad lines brought progress and profits, of course, and multiple train routes were planned to connect Milwaukee and Chicago with points north and west.

The company that planned to diagonally cross the Town of Porter was the Chicago, St. Paul and Fond du Lac Railroad, coming northwestward from Janesville, which it had reached in 1855.

Preliminary plans and surveys were conducted to continue the route from Janesville through the Town of Porter crossing the Caledonia Springs area, then traveling through Joseph K. P. Porter’s farm just east of Cooksville (or “Waucoma” as it was then known) and crossing the Badfish Creek at that point.

Thus the stone bridge was constructed at the Caledonia Springs creek in anticipation of that route to Madison.

Had that route been laid with railroad tracks, Cooksville (and Waucoma) would no doubt have grown and expanded eastward toward the tracks and the small village would have grown. And it might not be what it is today: a historic “wee bit of New England in Wisconsin.”

But the train did not arrive. Instead, the financial Panic of 1857 happened. A general national economic downturn bankrupted many of the ambitious and under-funded railroad companies and many plans were abandoned. In 1859, when the economy recovered, the newly-formed railroad company changed its plans to reach Madison. Instead it built tracks from Janesville northward to Minnesota Junction near Fond du Lac, joining lines from Milwaukee that headed toward Minnesota. And eventually, of course, other railroads were built through nearby Stoughton and Evansville.

The bridge over Caledonia Springs today

The little arched Caledonia Springs Railroad Bridge built to serve as a culvert over the creek never supported any railroad tracks. But much of it still stands hidden away arching over a ravine, some of it collapsed into the creek formed by the many local springs whose waters flow northward to the Badfish Creek and then three rivers later into the Gulf of Mexico.

It’s a bit of a hike from Caledonia Road to the bridge site but worth the effort, especially if iced tea and wild black raspberry scones await the hikers at Jill and Josh’s handsome stone house after a traipse through the nearby woods and fields on a sunny spring day.