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Hamptons Online - Guide to the Hamptons and East End of Long Island
In 1958 Charles Bourke Wildbank, eldest of nine children and congenitally profoundly deaf, was taking piano lessons after school. In the fifth grade he had undertaken three years of intensive lip reading and speech training in a school for the deaf. His parents thought that music lessons would somehow bring out and make useful the residual hearing he might have. But one night the music teacher phoned his parents, wrote his father last week from Florida, where Wildbank headed for his annual, one man exhibition at the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, and said, “Mr. Bourke, you are wasting your money and my time. Why don't you get this child art lessons?”
“I've been exhibiting there for the past 10 years. This year, I’m celebrating my move to a new home studio in Jamesport, a lovely potato barn conversion,” said Wildbank via email. It was through the innovations of the Internet that this interview took place.
“I cannot talk over the phone like everyone else, I am deaf since birth. I do take exception though in that I am able to converse with my family members over the phone as I know their speech patterns rather intimately. At best, it is awkward especially when I miss a line or so, and it creates added time much to the impatience of most people in this fast paced world. Email is great, I admit it gives me a great cover regarding my deafness,” explained the Long Island native who was fitted with a hearing aid at age two, and whose brother is also deaf, and another hard of hearing.
Wearing the device only helped him to hear the vowel sounds through its powerful amplification. Reading lips and learning vocabulary were acquired in tandem and are inseparable for ease of learning and approximation. “Though I naturally used many homemade gestures, I was encouraged to speak. At a school for the deaf I was able to learn the essential phonetics and mimicry through speech training until age six,” Wildbank informed. Thereafter he enrolled into weekly after school speech training programs. “Tutoring came in very handy. It was stressful enough to follow the teacher in class and keep up my grades. I didn’t learn sign language until I learned to drive a car.”
At the age of nine, with the support and nurturing of his parents and grandmother, Wildbank began painting. They helped him select the paints and brushes - watercolors first, then oil, and eventually pastels. “When I was younger, drawing took the place of speaking when I couldn’t find the words,” Wildbank remembered. “Painting or drawing was something I developed because I remember admiring the graffiti in the neighborhood. I loved to draw and found myself drawing my other hand. It developed into drawing a hand holding a ball, earth, or a pencil, sort of like artist Escher. Art was never a means to escape, it was either a communication or even a dance, showing my skill.”
Wildbank attended three prestigious educational institutions - Yale, Pratt, and Columbia graduating with honors. His brilliance wasn’t affected by his inability to hear. Even though it was the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the technology was sparse for students with disabilities, he didn’t face any challenges or prejudices. “Students were friendly and helpful. Mostly I shared class notes with other students since I had been a very good notetaker. Today, computer and Internet technology have made things much easier especially for the hearing impaired,” said Wildbank.
But while in grad school, seeing other students dating and the lack of having a girlfriend, and not wanting to wear his hearing aid, he began experiencing bouts of depression. “I felt as if I was in between two worlds. It was a fact then that I had a communication difficulty. Communication being so crucial, especially in relationships, I felt as if I had nowhere to turn. I cheered myself up any way I could - by taking off backpacking around Europe, and when returning I changed schools to where there would be more women in classes,” Wildbank admitted. At 34 he eventually married a beautiful deaf woman, but after 23 years of marriage they parted ways. “Now, I have grown and communication is something I cherish and never take for granted. I also grew to learn that it does not involve just talking, great love is predominantly non-verbal and goes deeper.” He now lives with the love of his life, Mary.
In 1979 Wildbank’s first exhibit at Bonwit Tellers created a sensation on Fifth Avenue with a giant sparkling rendering of the famed Cartier diamond. He had just left his position after seven years of teaching the deaf. Deciding to continue painting, he discovered that other artists were exhibiting their art in the store windows of Fifth Avenue, and thought he’d give it a try. “I went inside several stores and inquired; beginning with a floral exhibit in Bonwit Tellers where Trump Tower now stands. Things happened rather quickly because the window designer wished to take a holiday and I came at the right time. The exhibit was arranged immediately, the following week it turned out to be a success.” Soon after he walked into neighboring Cartier’s and inquired about their windows, then three years later they gave him an entire salon upstairs. “This resulted in my painting the large ‘Cartier Diamond’ on a seven foot tall canvas.”
The same year Wildbank painted a portrait of an artist, David Hockney, whom he’d admired since college. An unexpected encounter with Hockney seated at a restaurant table with curator Henry Geldzahler in New York, led Wildbank to introduce himself. “I asked him if I could paint his portrait. Hockney wrote down his phone number and address and did a photo shoot with my Polaroid camera. He was fascinated with the camera. I took several good shots but one which turned half blank was in turn filled in by David himself using his ink pen.” Wildbank used the Polaroid’s as the model for his ten-foot long diptych portrait of Hockney. “I was so happy. Then many years later I was able to meet him in Beverly Hills for lunch and to his delight showed him the pictures.”
The late Opera tenor, Luciano Pavarotti was also an inspiration to Wildbank. “Growing up, I have despaired over being able to sing and yet not hear the notes enough to discern the pitches. I can only get the melody and nuances of music with my hearing aid. I deeply love music but have transcended that with my love for color and light.” Wildbank painted his portrait in 1986 and later received a letter from Pavarotti expressing his gratitude and love for the portrait. Wildbank’s hearing aid coupled with good amplifiers enables him to enjoy music. “I prefer music performed live. I also love to watch people sing. Usually, I find myself indulging in chanting as I paint.”
In 1994 PBS and the Discovery Channel interviewed Wildbank in his studio for “Deaf Mosaic,” which covered his art and other aspects of his life via video. “Several prominent deaf people have been interviewed, including my deaf friend Roberto Wirth, owner of Rome’s Hassler Hotel. Now these videos can be found in the schools of the deaf media libraries, so that our youth can see into the lives of our role models.” In 2002, he along with about one hundred deaf artists, were featured in Deborah Sonnenstrahl's book, “Deaf Artists in America: Colonial to Contemporary.”
Wildbank is well-known for his versatility of a wide range of figurative themes including florals, still life, portraits, and seascapes. His still life and portraits possess the quality of the great masters. His ability to execute the face, bone structure, skin, eyes, tones and textures with such precision it gives you the impression that what you’re looking at has a velvet 3–D effect jumping off the canvas. Not an easy feat for a majority of artists. Even while having such incredible artistic abilities and being under the age of 80, Wildbank continues to encounter great challenges especially when it comes to portraits. “I just love to fill large spaces but I notice that as the dimensions expand, more work is demanding of me. Because of the human scale, monumental works are going to require frequent perspective and proportion checks. The artist has to stand back to look at the whole of his creation after moments of being lost in the up close detail,” he explained of his craft.
While private collectors of his work span Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Montreal, Toronto, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Beverly Hills, and Palm Beach. His has exhibited in New York City, Long Island, California, Nevada, Rhode Island, Maine, Florida, and Jerusalem. Some of his corporate collectors are General Electric Corporation, MBNA Bank, Golden Pear Café, Mattus Ice Cream, and Cunard Lines.
It was in 2003 that Cunard commissioned him two 18-foot murals for the exclusive luxury liner, Queen Mary II. The ship owners and architects were seeking nature scenes of England and America and sought out Wildbank. But because of the ships code restriction the art had to be fireproof. So Wildbank set out to locate a comparable canvas to paint the murals. He found a synthetic cloth, a heavier material “Trevira” manufactured in Germany. It took him six months of actual painting and upon completion the two murals were rolled and shipped to France where the ship was being built. A team of European professionals were dispatched to stretch and frame the paintings on board in time for the inauguration and Queen Elizabeth II’s visit.
Wildbank has had extensive travels to Europe, Iceland, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Peru, and the Caribbean. Coupled with almost three decades of exhibiting, the difference in his artwork now and in his first show in 1979 is, “In my earlier years, I have painted mostly with airbrush and largely floral works. That gradually evolved toward still life and nature. Portraits were sporadic until I began to realize that I became drawn toward the mysteries of the mind and spirit, and how it is portrayed on the surface in a portrait. A thought alone can so much change one’s appearance! A face would be a composite of countless of thoughts in checks and balances, which never ceases to amaze me. When that gets too much for me, I’d take leaps of fancy on my canvas, not so much as being representational. I’m feeling more expressive and uncontained. I feel freer compared to when doing a portrait. Nevertheless, I love them both,” he conceded.
If he could forfeit his artistry to have full hearing capabilities Wildbank says, “Even if I’d switch to composing music or singing arias, I’d still be an artist. I am an eternal artist, regardless.” When he’s sleeping he often finds himself talking to someone in his dreams. “One time, I saw words coming out of people’s mouths in forms of color floating like bubbles. I hear music often in my dreams - everything and anything is possible in dreams.” The one sound he wishes he could hear is to listen to the many beautiful opera voices. “I guess I can only imagine. I love how my voice feels inside and I guess many infants derive this pleasure when being held close to the heart.”
The roulette wheel of vibrant colors Wildbank uses in his work he associates with emotion. “But if I would hear how wide the range of vocal repertoire a singer is capable of, it would feel to me like a beautiful rainbow in an otherwise dreary early spring countryside.” He describes, “The sound of rain would be the color of a dusty mauve and Prussian blue alternating with each other. The sound of the howling wind would be the color of very dark marine kelp, dark forest green, a near absence of color intensity approaching charcoal grey. The color for the sound of laughter would be a kaleidoscopic palette in calypso neon colors. And the color of love is a very deep hue of rosy and peppermint pink!”
Until June, Charles Wildbank will be completing a two-pronged project: “Portraits and Murals.” The portraits of “Red Boy” and “The Attic,” the murals are of the Hado series translates from Japanese as “wave.” They are large expressions of the elements of life: earth, air, fire, water, and spirit.
# Charles Wildbank’s work is currently on display at The South Street Gallery in Greenport. And during mid-June and mid-August he will hold classes at the Wildbank Art Studio Workshop in Jamesport. On May 31, June 1, Aug. 2 through Aug. 3 he will on exhibit at The Westhampton Beach Art Show at the Village Green, Main and Mill Streets, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
# The Wildbank Art Studio is open to the public by appointment only. For more information, or to view his work visit his website at Fine Art and Photorealism Paintings by Charles Wildbank, or contact him at wildbank@wildbank.com.
In 1958 Charles Bourke Wildbank, eldest of nine children and congenitally profoundly deaf, was taking piano lessons after school. In the fifth grade he had undertaken three years of intensive lip reading and speech training in a school for the deaf. His parents thought that music lessons would somehow bring out and make useful the residual hearing he might have. But one night the music teacher phoned his parents, wrote his father last week from Florida, where Wildbank headed for his annual, one man exhibition at the Ocean Reef Club in Key Largo, and said, “Mr. Bourke, you are wasting your money and my time. Why don't you get this child art lessons?”
“I've been exhibiting there for the past 10 years. This year, I’m celebrating my move to a new home studio in Jamesport, a lovely potato barn conversion,” said Wildbank via email. It was through the innovations of the Internet that this interview took place.
“I cannot talk over the phone like everyone else, I am deaf since birth. I do take exception though in that I am able to converse with my family members over the phone as I know their speech patterns rather intimately. At best, it is awkward especially when I miss a line or so, and it creates added time much to the impatience of most people in this fast paced world. Email is great, I admit it gives me a great cover regarding my deafness,” explained the Long Island native who was fitted with a hearing aid at age two, and whose brother is also deaf, and another hard of hearing.
Wearing the device only helped him to hear the vowel sounds through its powerful amplification. Reading lips and learning vocabulary were acquired in tandem and are inseparable for ease of learning and approximation. “Though I naturally used many homemade gestures, I was encouraged to speak. At a school for the deaf I was able to learn the essential phonetics and mimicry through speech training until age six,” Wildbank informed. Thereafter he enrolled into weekly after school speech training programs. “Tutoring came in very handy. It was stressful enough to follow the teacher in class and keep up my grades. I didn’t learn sign language until I learned to drive a car.”
At the age of nine, with the support and nurturing of his parents and grandmother, Wildbank began painting. They helped him select the paints and brushes - watercolors first, then oil, and eventually pastels. “When I was younger, drawing took the place of speaking when I couldn’t find the words,” Wildbank remembered. “Painting or drawing was something I developed because I remember admiring the graffiti in the neighborhood. I loved to draw and found myself drawing my other hand. It developed into drawing a hand holding a ball, earth, or a pencil, sort of like artist Escher. Art was never a means to escape, it was either a communication or even a dance, showing my skill.”
Wildbank attended three prestigious educational institutions - Yale, Pratt, and Columbia graduating with honors. His brilliance wasn’t affected by his inability to hear. Even though it was the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the technology was sparse for students with disabilities, he didn’t face any challenges or prejudices. “Students were friendly and helpful. Mostly I shared class notes with other students since I had been a very good notetaker. Today, computer and Internet technology have made things much easier especially for the hearing impaired,” said Wildbank.
But while in grad school, seeing other students dating and the lack of having a girlfriend, and not wanting to wear his hearing aid, he began experiencing bouts of depression. “I felt as if I was in between two worlds. It was a fact then that I had a communication difficulty. Communication being so crucial, especially in relationships, I felt as if I had nowhere to turn. I cheered myself up any way I could - by taking off backpacking around Europe, and when returning I changed schools to where there would be more women in classes,” Wildbank admitted. At 34 he eventually married a beautiful deaf woman, but after 23 years of marriage they parted ways. “Now, I have grown and communication is something I cherish and never take for granted. I also grew to learn that it does not involve just talking, great love is predominantly non-verbal and goes deeper.” He now lives with the love of his life, Mary.
In 1979 Wildbank’s first exhibit at Bonwit Tellers created a sensation on Fifth Avenue with a giant sparkling rendering of the famed Cartier diamond. He had just left his position after seven years of teaching the deaf. Deciding to continue painting, he discovered that other artists were exhibiting their art in the store windows of Fifth Avenue, and thought he’d give it a try. “I went inside several stores and inquired; beginning with a floral exhibit in Bonwit Tellers where Trump Tower now stands. Things happened rather quickly because the window designer wished to take a holiday and I came at the right time. The exhibit was arranged immediately, the following week it turned out to be a success.” Soon after he walked into neighboring Cartier’s and inquired about their windows, then three years later they gave him an entire salon upstairs. “This resulted in my painting the large ‘Cartier Diamond’ on a seven foot tall canvas.”
The same year Wildbank painted a portrait of an artist, David Hockney, whom he’d admired since college. An unexpected encounter with Hockney seated at a restaurant table with curator Henry Geldzahler in New York, led Wildbank to introduce himself. “I asked him if I could paint his portrait. Hockney wrote down his phone number and address and did a photo shoot with my Polaroid camera. He was fascinated with the camera. I took several good shots but one which turned half blank was in turn filled in by David himself using his ink pen.” Wildbank used the Polaroid’s as the model for his ten-foot long diptych portrait of Hockney. “I was so happy. Then many years later I was able to meet him in Beverly Hills for lunch and to his delight showed him the pictures.”
The late Opera tenor, Luciano Pavarotti was also an inspiration to Wildbank. “Growing up, I have despaired over being able to sing and yet not hear the notes enough to discern the pitches. I can only get the melody and nuances of music with my hearing aid. I deeply love music but have transcended that with my love for color and light.” Wildbank painted his portrait in 1986 and later received a letter from Pavarotti expressing his gratitude and love for the portrait. Wildbank’s hearing aid coupled with good amplifiers enables him to enjoy music. “I prefer music performed live. I also love to watch people sing. Usually, I find myself indulging in chanting as I paint.”
In 1994 PBS and the Discovery Channel interviewed Wildbank in his studio for “Deaf Mosaic,” which covered his art and other aspects of his life via video. “Several prominent deaf people have been interviewed, including my deaf friend Roberto Wirth, owner of Rome’s Hassler Hotel. Now these videos can be found in the schools of the deaf media libraries, so that our youth can see into the lives of our role models.” In 2002, he along with about one hundred deaf artists, were featured in Deborah Sonnenstrahl's book, “Deaf Artists in America: Colonial to Contemporary.”
Wildbank is well-known for his versatility of a wide range of figurative themes including florals, still life, portraits, and seascapes. His still life and portraits possess the quality of the great masters. His ability to execute the face, bone structure, skin, eyes, tones and textures with such precision it gives you the impression that what you’re looking at has a velvet 3–D effect jumping off the canvas. Not an easy feat for a majority of artists. Even while having such incredible artistic abilities and being under the age of 80, Wildbank continues to encounter great challenges especially when it comes to portraits. “I just love to fill large spaces but I notice that as the dimensions expand, more work is demanding of me. Because of the human scale, monumental works are going to require frequent perspective and proportion checks. The artist has to stand back to look at the whole of his creation after moments of being lost in the up close detail,” he explained of his craft.
While private collectors of his work span Amsterdam, Hong Kong, Montreal, Toronto, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Beverly Hills, and Palm Beach. His has exhibited in New York City, Long Island, California, Nevada, Rhode Island, Maine, Florida, and Jerusalem. Some of his corporate collectors are General Electric Corporation, MBNA Bank, Golden Pear Café, Mattus Ice Cream, and Cunard Lines.
It was in 2003 that Cunard commissioned him two 18-foot murals for the exclusive luxury liner, Queen Mary II. The ship owners and architects were seeking nature scenes of England and America and sought out Wildbank. But because of the ships code restriction the art had to be fireproof. So Wildbank set out to locate a comparable canvas to paint the murals. He found a synthetic cloth, a heavier material “Trevira” manufactured in Germany. It took him six months of actual painting and upon completion the two murals were rolled and shipped to France where the ship was being built. A team of European professionals were dispatched to stretch and frame the paintings on board in time for the inauguration and Queen Elizabeth II’s visit.
Wildbank has had extensive travels to Europe, Iceland, Mexico, Japan, Korea, Hawaii, Peru, and the Caribbean. Coupled with almost three decades of exhibiting, the difference in his artwork now and in his first show in 1979 is, “In my earlier years, I have painted mostly with airbrush and largely floral works. That gradually evolved toward still life and nature. Portraits were sporadic until I began to realize that I became drawn toward the mysteries of the mind and spirit, and how it is portrayed on the surface in a portrait. A thought alone can so much change one’s appearance! A face would be a composite of countless of thoughts in checks and balances, which never ceases to amaze me. When that gets too much for me, I’d take leaps of fancy on my canvas, not so much as being representational. I’m feeling more expressive and uncontained. I feel freer compared to when doing a portrait. Nevertheless, I love them both,” he conceded.
If he could forfeit his artistry to have full hearing capabilities Wildbank says, “Even if I’d switch to composing music or singing arias, I’d still be an artist. I am an eternal artist, regardless.” When he’s sleeping he often finds himself talking to someone in his dreams. “One time, I saw words coming out of people’s mouths in forms of color floating like bubbles. I hear music often in my dreams - everything and anything is possible in dreams.” The one sound he wishes he could hear is to listen to the many beautiful opera voices. “I guess I can only imagine. I love how my voice feels inside and I guess many infants derive this pleasure when being held close to the heart.”
The roulette wheel of vibrant colors Wildbank uses in his work he associates with emotion. “But if I would hear how wide the range of vocal repertoire a singer is capable of, it would feel to me like a beautiful rainbow in an otherwise dreary early spring countryside.” He describes, “The sound of rain would be the color of a dusty mauve and Prussian blue alternating with each other. The sound of the howling wind would be the color of very dark marine kelp, dark forest green, a near absence of color intensity approaching charcoal grey. The color for the sound of laughter would be a kaleidoscopic palette in calypso neon colors. And the color of love is a very deep hue of rosy and peppermint pink!”
Until June, Charles Wildbank will be completing a two-pronged project: “Portraits and Murals.” The portraits of “Red Boy” and “The Attic,” the murals are of the Hado series translates from Japanese as “wave.” They are large expressions of the elements of life: earth, air, fire, water, and spirit.
# Charles Wildbank’s work is currently on display at The South Street Gallery in Greenport. And during mid-June and mid-August he will hold classes at the Wildbank Art Studio Workshop in Jamesport. On May 31, June 1, Aug. 2 through Aug. 3 he will on exhibit at The Westhampton Beach Art Show at the Village Green, Main and Mill Streets, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
# The Wildbank Art Studio is open to the public by appointment only. For more information, or to view his work visit his website at Fine Art and Photorealism Paintings by Charles Wildbank, or contact him at wildbank@wildbank.com.