George Widener (born ) is a self-taught artist who employs his mathematical/calculating capability to create art ranging from complex calendars and numerical

palindrome A palindrome is a word, number, phrase, or other sequence of symbols that reads the same backwards as forwards, such as the words ''madam'' or ''racecar'', the date and time ''11/11/11 11:11,'' and the sentence: "A man, a plan, a canal – Panam ...

s to

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...

-like antiquarian landscapes to Asian scrolls. He was born in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

Collections

Widener's work can be found in many private and public

Outsider Art Outsider art is art made by self-taught or supposedly naïve artists with typically little or no contact with the conventions of the art worlds. In many cases, their work is discovered only after their deaths. Often, outsider art illustrates e ...

collections, including the Bruno Decharme ABCD Collection in Paris, The

American Folk Art Museum The American Folk Art Museum is an art museum in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, at 2, Lincoln Square, Columbus Avenue at 66th Street. It is the premier institution devoted to the aesthetic appreciation of folk art and creative expressions of ...

, The Art Collection of the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute, and The Collection de l’Art Brut. Widener has exhibited at th
Jan Krugier GallerySalon du Dessins ContemporainKunsthaus Kannen
(Münster), the Islands of Genius exhibition (for prodigious savants) and others, and shows at the New York Outsider Art Fair, when ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' art critic

Roberta Smith Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position. Early life Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied at ...

proclaimed that the artist was “one of the Outsider Art Fair’s most significant recent discoveries”. George is also the subject of a recently published (2009) book ''The Art of George Widener'' by Roger Cardinal. Speaking at an October 2008 hallmark event organized under the auspices of the Royal Society and the British Academy on the subjects of autism and creativity, Cardinal illustrated and detailed the 'truly visionary alternative worlds of George Widener". George Widener lives in the mountain town of

Waynesville, North Carolina Waynesville is a town and the county seat of Haywood County, North Carolina. It is the largest town in North Carolina west of Asheville. Waynesville is located about southwest of Asheville between the Great Smoky and Blue Ridge Mountains. As ...

and travels abroad frequently. He is represented in London by the Henry Boxer Gallery and in New York City by the Ricco/Maresca Gallery.

Selected exhibitions

* Jan Krugier (New York)* * Kunsthaus Kannen (Munster)* * Salon du Dessins Contemporain (Paris)* * New York Outsider Art Fair * * The Islands of Genius Exhibition (Fond du Lac, Wisconsin; for prodigious savants) * ''Secret Universe IV'',

Hamburger Bahnhof Hamburger Bahnhof is the former terminus of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstrasse in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as a contemporary art museum, the , part of the Berlin Nati ...

, Berlin 2013''Das Datum ist dem Genius sein Code''
(German for "The date is the genius' code"), Exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin 2013, report at spiegel.de (german) *'Alternative Guide to the Universe', Hayward Gallery, London, 2013

References

*Roger Cardinal "The Calendars of George Widener"
Raw Vision
' magazine (issue #51) *Johns Hopkins University

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Widener, George 1962 births Artists with autism Autistic savants People on the autism spectrum Living people Artists with disabilities