AUGUST
99
THE LONG AND THOROUGH EDUCATION OF AN ARTIST
By Alice Palladino-Craig
Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, FSU
Those of us who have known Bill Walmsley
- Professor Walmsley - for a long time have become accustomed
to his easy affability and his enthusiasm for collecting art.
What we don't always know is his history, the determination he
mustered to set his own course, to study from the best there
ever was and to absorb centuries of art history as well as contemporary
art movements.
Bill's crusades took him from the strictures of small town life in Alabama to the great art capitals of the world, and he sacrificed, as any pilgrim would, to seek his goal.
Bill went off to war even before he went off to college. During
World War II, he was first stationed in England and then France,
Chateau Thierry, and Camp Cleveland near Rheims.
His first 'organized' art project was painting a mural for the
Red Cross at the camp; he was assisted by two German prisoners
under the watchful eyes of two Polish guards.
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Though he was sending his paycheck home to his parents, he
would sell his ration of cigarettes and candy to have money to
get to Paris on weekends. The museums were still closed; it didn't
matter - cathedrals, monuments, public sculpture, national architecture
- all that was still available.
By August of 1945, Bill was slated to leave Camp Cleveland for
Japan; the end of the war in the Pacific changed everything.
Instead he was sent through France, down to Marseilles, then
up to Metz, to Munich, Augsburg, Warsburg. He says the men were
often transported in 40-and-8s, freight cars that would hold
40 men or 8 horses.
His travels educated him to the wealth of culture that the
New World had not yet acquired. Eventually he returned to Tuscaloosa,
Ala., and began working on his B.F.A. By his junior year, he
was acutely aware of the disparity between the education he could
get at that time in the rural South and what there was to be
learned out in the world.
On the GI Bill, he made his way back to Paris, living in a tiny
flat for a year. He studied at the Académie Julian (1949-50)
and in every museum in Paris. Drawing and sculpting from the
Académie models - as students had traditionally done -
he refined his skills and looked at the art riches of the grand
city.
He remembers that his teacher had been a friend of Bonnard
and used the high-keyed Impressionist palette. Yet with only
$19 for materials each month, Bill painted not on canvas, but
on paper, living a life more meager than ever before. At least
it was in Paris.
Returning from his first crusade, he finished his B.F.A at the
University of Alabama and started on his master's when he decided
to experience contemporary art in New York.
Working a full-time job at a bakery (counting on those two free
meals a day), he attended classes at the Art Students League;
from November to April in 1951-52, Bill spent his time becoming
the artist he wanted to be. Sundays were free days at the museums,
and he went every Sunday as long as he was there.
Eventually, he came home to the South, where he completed
his M.A.
"The university system told us what to do," he says
- meaning that direction and purpose were given to young artists
back then - "but the Academy taught us to draw."
He had undertaken a quest to attain the education of an artist.
To our great benefit, what he learned he freely shared with generations
of students at Florida State University. His artistic descendants
are now the faculty of colleges, universities and print ateliers
all over the country.
The Museum of Fine Arts will exhibit his works Oct. 8 through
Nov. 22, 1999.
Please call (850) 644-1254 for details of the exhibition opening
Oct. 8 and his 76th birthday party the next day.
We welcome all former students and friends - as well as art lovers
anywhere - for this wonderful landmark in his important career.