Karl Hutter Fine Art
On April 28th, a day before his birthday, William Quigley will unveil a monumental, politically charged, 32 x 6ft painting consisting of 6 individual, sculpturally considered, framed canvases for his first exhibition with Karl Hutter Fine Art. Mr. Quigley has not had a solo show in Los Angeles since leaving for New York 16 years ago. The painting, “ Because its 32ft, may be my Guernica? But I just thought of that after looking at it a bit. There’s a lineage of political and moral connotations, and questions.”
Maracaibo, Venezuela
In 1989 was offered a chance to paint in Maracaibo, Venezuela for 3 months. Venezuela was a disaster, the Government was overthrown, chaos broke out, so he fled gathering what he had created under his arm and headed back to NY. Looking for a warmer climate and to investigate the much talked about Art Scene. H flew to LA and rented a house in West Hollywood where he developed quite a following through sales and exhibitions with the influential Post War dealer, Manny Silverman.
First Exhibition
His first exhibition was in June 1985 a month after graduating from Philadelphia College of Art. Philadelphia’s top contemporary collector, Henry S. McNeil, gave him a 2 person show with Andy Warhol, hanging 5 abstract Quigley paintings in the back room. All sold before the artist arrived. McNeil bought 2. Already committed to Columbia University Graduate School he left Philadelphia and moved to Harlem, NY painting and studying film. After Columbia he moved downtown in 1988 to a giant loft on Broadway and Bleecker, making a living moving and installing art.
LA Art Fair and Art Basel Switzerland
In 1992 Quigley showed in his first LA Art Fair and Art Basel Switzerland with Spain’s Ferran Cano. Ernst Beyeler, the legendary Swiss fair’s founder, purchased 2 of 35, 12×9” drawings, all created in Art Basel’s Storage Room 2 days prior to the Opening. Cano hung and sold nearly 30 little works, which led to offering Quigley the opportunity to come paint at the Miro Estate in Mallorca, Spain and exhibit at his Galleries in Barcelona and Mallorca. In Spain for 7 months, he made 44 works selling nearly 35 of them while in Europe.
Setting himself apart
Returning to LA, unconventionally, he set himself apart from the norm, by selling works privately to many new and established collectors, and high profile personalities in the Entertainment World. In hindsight, since today so many artists are self branding, he may have been visionary, but credits artists like Van Gogh, Renoir, Cezanne, Pollock and Guston, Picasso for his reasoning, “The galleries were not showing these guys in the beginning at all. Funny how they were mostly rejected by the accepted culture, yet now they are considered the best. I knew I may struggle but wanted to try to get better and make good paintings on my own without the pressure of painting for the market. It didn’t help that all the good galleries were rejecting me anyway. lol”
Artist run Space Mayb Gallery
In 1994 he did just that funding his own Artist run Space Mayb Gallery with close friend artists Marc Chiat, Dan Fisher, and director Dan Bernier. Mayb became the infamous AB Gallery showing artists like Marc Chiat, Jason Rhoades, Russell Crotty, Mike Bismuth, Kevin Sullivan, George Stoll, Manuel Ocampo, Steve Hurd and Martin Kersels. Most of the artists from AB were picked up by major NY dealers, with a few showing in the Whitney Biennial and Germany’s Prestigious Documenta.3479-scroll-vertical-arrows1
10 artists own individual storefront gallery
Moving on Quigley in 1995 created new opportunities by starting a highly advertised visible gallery with Collector Jay Payne who owned an entire Mini Mall on the corner of Highland and Sunset Blvd where thousands of cars pass every day. 10 artists had their own individual storefront gallery. The shows were Epic with hundreds of people flooding the Openings. Eventually the Mini Mall was sold. The Mini Mall helped him meet Dealer David Lawrence, and do one of his most important exhibits that defined his work and focus, “The Civil War Show”. The content in this exhibition began a continuous theme of incorporating Abstraction, the figure and historical iconography as symbols and metaphors integrated like a puzzle throughout his canvases.
