Vernon Witham

Vernon Witham

Witham, Vernon

Eugene

painter

printmaker

Northwest artist

Oregon artist

Vernon Witham was born and raised in Eugene where, as a high school student in 1941, he was asked to paint a mural in the school hall. He chose the history of music as his subject matter. Also in 1941 he attended the Modern Mexican Artists show in Portland and was very impressed with the paintings, especially their carved and painted frames. He was still in high school when he first saw the work of Jack Wilkinson, a professor of art at the University of Oregon. Witham writes he was "completely overwhelmed." In 1943 Witham began his study at the University of Oregon with Jack Wilkinson, David McCosh, and Andrew Vincent. The following year he entered the army, running a silk screen shop at Fort Bliss, Texas. From that location he was able to continue his painting on weekends, going into Mexico or out into the desert.

After his discharge in 1946 Witham went to Mexico to absorb the culture and continue painting. With the help of the G.I. Bill, he returned to his schooling at the University of Oregon and, under Wilkinson, began exploring structural systems and how cubism related to them. From 1946 to 1951 Witham's work was built upon the cubists and, he writes, he has gone on to invent his own structures and images. In 1947 he, Norma Driscoll, and Paul Georges were chosen by a jury to participate in the Second Annual Exhibition of Painting at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Many of the leading painters were invited to show at this exhibit, among them Milton Avery, Georgia O Keeffe, Rufino Tamayo, and Robert Motherwell.

By 1949 Witham was in New York where Robert Motherwell extended an invitation to him to attend Motherwell's school. Although pleased, he decided against attendance. He continued to paint until he became ill and returned to San Francisco to recover. There he, Driscoll, and Robert Gilmore shared an apartment while Witham attended the California Institute of Fine Arts. He returned to Eugene and the University of Oregon where he met fellow student James Ivory, later a well-known filmmaker. Ivory photographed many of Witham's cubist style paintings and these works can be seen in the movie, Surviving Picasso.

Vernon Witham painted in many styles, the result of working for over fifty years on a system of how the universe, and everything in it, operates. He left Eugene in 1960 and moved to Santa Fe.

Artist biography reproduced with permission from the authors, Oregon Painters: the First Hundred Years (1859-1959), Ginny Allen and Jody Klevit.

Male

Associate of: Paul Georges (American, 1923-2002)

Associate of: Norma Driscoll Gilmore (American, born 1927)

Student of: David McCosh (American, 1903-1981)

Student of: Andrew McDuffie Vincent (American, 1898-1993)

Student of: Jack Wilkinson (American, 1913-1974)