Wildling Museum hosts Theodore Waddell exhibit with works by his mentor and friend Isabelle Johnson

While the art lovers viewing his work at the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature in Solvang enjoy moderate temperatures that barely demand a thin pair of socks to stay comfortable, Theodore Waddell is bracing for a bitter winter in his Montana home.

“It’s about 13 degrees right now,” he explained during an interview with the Sun. “But I’m from Montana. I’m an endangered species. I was born and raised here.”

click to enlarge Wildling Museum hosts Theodore Waddell exhibit with works by his mentor and friend Isabelle Johnson
IMAGE COURTESY OF WILDLING MUSEUM OF ART AND NATURE
THE SPECIAL BOND: In a new exhibit at the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature in Solvang, artist Theodore Waddell shares the spotlight with his late mentor and friend, modernist artist Isabelle Johnson. The pair met when Waddell was a student at Eastern Montana College in the late 1950s.

Waddell, an acclaimed modernist Western painter, is part of a unique and especially sentimental exhibit currently showing at the Wildling. In the show, Waddell’s own paintings share the spotlight with those of his former teacher, mentor, and friend, Isabelle Johnson. The Student and The Teacher runs through Feb. 5 and highlights the ways in which Waddell was so profoundly influenced by the late Johnson.

Waddell’s long journey as an artist took him out of the barren landscapes of Montana’s remote wilderness and into the busy streets of New York City in its heyday as a magnet for modernist and abstract painters. The artist was born in Billings and raised in nearby Laurel, a railroad town with a population of around 3,000. But if you try to ask Waddell just how he came to embrace a life of modern art, you’ll find he is often mystified by the reasons himself.

“I’m not sure how I got into art,” Waddell said. “My dad painted box cars for the railroad. He used to do paint-by-numbers but he never let me try. By the third year, he finally let me. That was about 60 to 70 years ago.”

Waddell said his father would take him to meet local artists in the community, amateurs painting commissions for local businesses or residents. He said he never really understood his father’s motivations for the excursions, but the influence was long felt.

It was a fateful trip to the local library with a friend that was the kick-starter for the budding artist.

click to enlarge Wildling Museum hosts Theodore Waddell exhibit with works by his mentor and friend Isabelle Johnson
IMAGE COURTESY OF WILDLING MUSEUM OF ART AND NATURE
RENEGADE VISIONARY: Artist Isabelle Johnson, who died in 1992, is featured along with her former student Theodore Waddell in 'The Student and The Teacher,' an exhibit at the Wildling Museum of Art and Nature, which runs through Feb. 5.

“We accidentally found a Will James sketchbook,” Waddell said. “We took turns copying and drawing out of it. Later, I found out a lot more about Will James and that really made a difference in me. That was a big part of my early childhood.”

Will James was a French-Canadian artist and writer who won the 1927 Newbery Medal for his book Smoky the Cowhorse. His art, in the tradition of that of famed Western painter Charles Russell, featured grandiose Western landscapes that paid homage to the life of the solitary cowboy and the stoic traditions of the American West. Waddell was instantly mesmerized and thus began a long career creating his own interpretation of the land he was born into.

It was after high school in the 1950s when Waddell, a student at Eastern Montana College, had his first interactions with Isabelle Johnson. Johnson was a modernist, a renegade artist who rejected her formal realist depictions of Western life in favor of her own distinct vision.

Her impact on Waddell was immediate and life-changing.

“After I met [Johnson] I decided I didn’t want to be alive and not make art,” Waddell said. “Her painting style just resonated with me. She brought modernism back to Montana.”

Waddell worked two jobs to put himself through college, including one for Johnson. Noticing the student’s long and grueling schedule, she bought him a cot to sleep on if needed to when he worked for her.

“She picked out a small group of us to mentor,” he said. “She would take small groups of people down to her house and talk about art, and we did that for a long time. One day, quite accidentally, we were standing in a hallway and she said to a grad student that he should enroll in the Brooklyn Museum Art School. I thought she was talking to me, so that’s what I ended up doing.”

Waddell said he set out to follow in her footsteps and that meant a stint living the life of a starving artist in New York City. He lived there during the early ’60s, the glory days of abstract expressionism. Waddell, also a seasoned jazz trumpeter, spent his days painting and his nights roaming the city’s infamous jazz clubs, encountering legends such as Thelonious Monk.

Wildling Museum hosts Theodore Waddell exhibit with works by his mentor and friend Isabelle Johnson
PAIR OF ARTISTS: The Student and The Teacher shows through Feb. 5 at the Wildling Museum, 1511 Mission Drive, Solvang. More info: (805) 688-1082.

He eventually made his way back to Montana, and after a stint in the Army, he settled into life as a painter and rancher. Waddell has had nearly one hundred exhibits in his lifetime, featuring work of an eclectic style and approach. He meanders from abstract meditations to wildly textured and ornate pieces that hint at layers of emotion and meaning behind every stroke. His art has been recognized by the White House, and he has received numerous awards, including the Governor’s Arts Award from the Montana Arts Council. His pieces hang in the permanent collections of the Denver Museum of Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and National Museum of Wildlife Art, and many others.

Quietly reflective, Waddell has little room for the burden of life’s regrets. But as he wrapped up his interview with the Sun, he made one small concession about Johnson.

“I wish I had taken more time with her and the things she was doing,” he admited.

It’s not a regret. Just an observation for an artist who has spent decades meticulously watching the slow breath of a monumental landscape. 

Arts and Lifestyle Writer Rebecca Rose’s soul is forever trapped in an artist’s studio in the Bowery in 1962. Contact her at [email protected].

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