Wilson, Wendell E.
Wendell Eugene Wilson was born in Minnesota in 1946, and began collecting minerals in 1956. A life-long artist, he studied at the Minneapolis Institute of Art while still in high school and began selling his artworks as a young teenager. He won numerous awards in art, including first place in a statewide cartooning competition in 1959. In college he pursued a double-major in Fine Art and Geology at the University of Minnesota, graduating in 1969. He earned his M.S. in Mineralogy (1972) from Arizona State University, while field-collecting extensively in Arizona's many abandoned mines and famous mineral localities. After obtaining his PhD in Mineralogy (1976) from the University of Minnesota, he was hired by the Mineralogical Record as full-time Editor and eventually rose to the positions of Editor-in-Chief, Publisher and corporation CEO.
In addition to collecting minerals, Wilson has built substantial collections of mining artifacts of all kinds, and published four books on antique miners' lamps, containing hundreds of hand-drawn pen-and-ink illustrations of miners' oil-wick “frog” lamps, candleholders, and carbide cap lamps. Some of his collectibles appear as props in his paintings of underground scenes. His first mineral painting appeared on the cover of the November-December 1972 issue of Mineralogical Record. His series of fantasy mineral-collecting scenes now numbers 14, and he has produced numerous specimen portraits in oil on canvas, watercolor, India ink and mixed media, as well as a number of highly detailed mining still life paintings in oil on canvas, oil on copper, and India ink.
Over the years Wilson has continued to produce artworks regularly as time permits. He has published over 1,000 mineral and mining artworks, and over 6,500 mineral photographs. His publications include over 270 journal articles in mineralogy, over 400 shorter works (book reviews, etc.), and nearly 2,000 biographies of mineralogists and other people in the mineral world. He also founded the Antiquarian Reprint Series as a method of preserving and distributing very rare, early illustrated mineral books, featuring mineral art from before the age of photography.
The new mineral species wendwilsonite was named in his honor in 1987; he was elected a Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America in 1989; he was presented with the Carnegie Mineralogical Award for 2001 (“in recognition of outstanding contributions to the field of mineralogy”); and his mineral collection won the Paul E. Desautels Memorial Trophy (the highest honor in mineral collecting) in 2013. Wilson continues to publish the Mineralogical Record and to write about, paint, research, photograph and collect minerals in Tucson, Arizona (e-mail: minrecord@comcast.net).
References:
Mitchell, R. S. (1988) Who's who in mineral names: Wendell Eugene Wilson, Jr. and Ignacio Domeyko. Rocks & Minerals, 63, 400-402.
Robinson, S. (1987) Mineral art today. Rocks & Minerals, 62, 328-343.
Robinson, S. (1987) Of mines and men: a look at art that depicts mining. Rocks & Minerals, 64, 476-495.
Goschener Alp
Watercolor and prismacolor pencil on art paper, 9 x 12 inches (1983). From the artist’s “Fantasy Underground Collecting Scenes” series. A small number (less than 10) of hand-colored prints were produced. Xerographically reproduced as signed and numbered prints on cotton paper, edition of 250, distributed with the 1983 Mineralogical Record Christmas card. Copyright 1983 Wendell E. Wilson.
At the Little Three Mine
Watercolor and prismacolor pencil on art paper, 9 x 12 inches (1997). From the artist’s “Fantasy Underground Collecting Scenes” series. A small number (less than 10) of hand-colored prints were produced. Xerographically reproduced as signed and numbered prints on cotton paper, edition of 200, distributed with the 1997 Mineralogical Record Christmas card. Copyright 1997 Wendell E. Wilson.
The Apache Mine
Watercolor and prismacolor pencil on art paper, 9 x 12 inches (1983). From the artist’s “Fantasy Underground Collecting Scenes” series. A small number (less than 10) of hand-colored prints were produced. Copyright 1983 Wendell E. Wilson.
The Czar’s Pocket, Mursinka 1915
Watercolor and prismacolor pencil on art paper, 9 x 12 inches (2000). From the artist’s “Fantasy Underground Collecting Scenes” series. Produced on commission for Martin Zinn, to advertise his 2000 Tucson Show. Xerographically reproduced as signed and numbered prints on cotton paper, edition of 250, distributed with the 2000 Mineralogical Record Christmas card. Copyright 2000 Wendell E. Wilson.
At the Red Cloud Mine
Watercolor and prismacolor pencil on art paper, 9 x 12 inches (1982). The first of the artist’s “Fantasy Underground Collecting Scenes” series. A small number (less than 10) of hand-colored prints were produced. Xerographically reproduced as signed and numbered prints on cotton paper, edition of 200, distributed with the 1982 Mineralogical Record Christmas card. Copyright 1982 Wendell E. Wilson.
Guardians of Sterling Hill
Watercolor and prismacolor pencil on art paper, 9 x 12 inches (1994). From the artist’s “Fantasy Underground Collecting Scenes” series, a variation on the Apache Mine scene, with zincite, franklinite and willemite crystals substituted for vanadinite. Painted on commission from Richard Hauck. Copyright 1994 Wendell E. Wilson.
Manganese Ore at the Sweet Home Mine, Alma, Colorado, 1898
Watercolor and prismacolor pencil on art board, 11 x 14 inches (1994). From the artist’s “Fantasy Underground Collecting Scenes” series. Painted on commission from Martin Zinn and reproduced by him as a poster for the 1994 Denver Show. Copyright 1994 Wendell E. Wilson.
The Mine with the Iron Door
Watercolor and Prismacolor pencil on art paper, 9 x 12 inches (1983). This picture illustrates a lost-mine legend that the Jesuits in old Arizona had a gold mine in the Catalina Mountains. When they were called home to Spain in favor of the Franciscan Order in 1676, they are said to have hidden their mine by filling the entrance with hematite-rich rocks and boulders, a sort of “iron door.” In the 1970’s a hiker claimed to have rediscovered the mine, but refused to lead Park Service officials to see it until they guaranteed his right whatever gold he found–a guarantee the State of Arizona was unwilling to give. There matter has rested in a stalemate since then. Six or seven individually hand-colored prints of this picture were produced. It was also reproduced in an ad for the Arizona Mineral and Fossil Show in vol.24/no.5 (1992) and vol.25/no.1 (1993) of the Mineralogical Record. Copyright 1983 by Wendell E. Wilson.
Rob Lavinsky, Wendell Wilson, and Susan Robinson.