Willard Midgette, Resident Artist Lecture 1976

After carefully detailing the approach of artists who influenced and excited him as a young painter (Jack Levine, James McGarrell, Caracci, Raphael, Bernini, Tiepolo, Philip Pearlstein, Dewain Valentine), Willard Midgette shows how he brought all those interests together in large illusionistic murals. Midgette also shares humorous incidents regarding audience reactions to entering his “walk-in” murals. Eventually, the cumbersomeness of the multiple-painting walk-in spaces led the artist to return to a more traditional format.