Paintings by Billy Woolway - Lanning Gallery [Sedona]

"Ventura #29"
Acrylic on Canvas Painting
20" x 16" wrap

Paintings of the Land and Heart

Painter Bill Woolway is now in his mid-90s and still painting, in his primitive style, subject matter that can make you cry. Inspired by the landscapes, people and animals around him, Woolway captures the feelings they evoke - in acrylic on wood with found materials subtly used to highlight a detail and draw our real world into the world he creates.

The primitive nature of Bill Woolway's paintings speaks at once to an archetype of Americana and his subjects justly represent an American reality. But the world he paints is often the one no one takes the time to see. The disenfranchised get their due in Bill Woolway's primitive paintings: from migrant workers whose toil and plight is as much a part of our dinner as the sunshine and rain to lost dogs finding a friend after a long time wandering. Bill Woolway's oeuvre asks us to look closer.

Bill Woolway spent his life as a painter. He also served in World War II in North Africa and Italy and had a long career in advertising. Keeping a studio across from his Chicago office the artist would cross the street at lunchtime to teach a painting class. "If I don't paint, I hurt," Bill Woolway has said, "I paint what I feel and go where my brush takes me." A move west brought him into the world of lettuce and strawberry pickers, long now the subjects of his continuing series "Another Day, Another Dollar." In these primitive style paintings, bent backs appear next to flowers sprouting crushed metal bottle caps, soft mountains undulate behind often windowless houses, slender white figures frequent doorways lending a ghostly presence whose significance we may debate: The lingering of lives from other harvests in other indistinguishable years? Does the slender couple, who appear under the word "coming" with the man in a dark business suit, represent the simplicity of hope or the perennially elusive American dream?

Another continuing effort of Bill Woolway is his "Lost Doggie" series. After raising a dog he found abandoned in the desert, Woolway could not help but capture and convey the fright, hunger and confusion so compellingly represented by their plight. How can one not feel moved by a title like "Lost Doggie Finds a Friend?" The simplicity of the sentiment perfectly balances with the archetype of the displaced; a small thing becomes an enormous thing.

"Another Day Another Dollar #64"
Mixed Media on Canvas Painting
28" x 22" / 26" x 36" framed

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Bill Woolway's paintings have been celebrated from the San Diego Museum of Art to the Art Institute of Chicago to the Smithsonian.

"Another Day Another Dollar #59" - Artwork by Billy Woolway

"Another Day Another Dollar #59"
Mixed Media on Canvas Painting
36" x 36"
--- SOLD ---

"Another Day Another Dollar #49"
Mixed Medium on Canvas Painting
48" x 30" wrap

"Another Day Another Dollar #56" - Paintings by Billy Woolway

"Another Day Another Dollar #56"
Mixed Media on Canvas Painting
30" x 24"

"Another Day Another Dollar #65"
Mixed Media on Canvas Painting
24" x 34" / 26" x 36" framed

"South of Sedona"
Acrylic on Canvas Painting
37" x 25"

Artist's prices beginning at $595 up to $5,900.

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