MAY WILSON
Untitled.
Watercolor on fibrous handmade paper, 1960. 610x930 mm; 24x36¾ inches. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right recto.Provenance: Acquired by Francis V. O'Connor (1937-2017), New York-based art historian, poet, artist and co-editor of the Jackson Pollock catalogue raisonné (published in 1978); gifted by bequest to the current owner.Wilson (1905-1986) was an American visual artist and figure in the 1960s to 1990s New York avant-garde art world. A pioneer of the feminist and mail art movement, she is best known for her Surrealist junk assemblages and her "Ridiculous Portrait" photocollages. In 1956, her son, the author and critic Williams S. Wilson, gave to Ray Johnson, the founder of the New York Correspondence School, his mother's address. This began a friendship and artistic collaboration between Johnson and Wilson, which would last the remainder of her life. Wilson became an integral part of Johnson's mail art circle and was initiated into the New York avant-garde through letters and small works that she exchanged with Robert Watts, George Brecht, Ad Reinhardt, Leonard Cohen, Arman, and many others.