About the Artist
Bill Wolfmann was born in Vienna, Austria in 1931. He spent the war years in the Midlands of England. After the war, Bill first discovered his talents in fashion drawing and later, while taking art classes in Chelsea and Hampstead Studios in London, in oil painting. With his good eye for art, Bill quickly became active in the fashion industry in London and soon after in New York City as a women's sportswear buyer for Alexander's Department Store, then Hales/Weinstocks and Liberty House/City of Paris in San Francisco and most recently for Fresno's Gottschalks.
In 2007 after 25 years as a buyer of ladies sportswear at Gottschalks, Bill decided to return to his art roots and pursue painting and drawing full time. Bill sought out several art scenes for inspiration and training. He first began studying at Fresno Art Museum and Fresno City College which gave him opportunities to work with fantastic local artists and educators such as Nanette Maki-Dearson, Ann Scheid and Kay Sermon, and as of recent, private studies with Will Portis.
Bill describes himself as a late bloomer with a devotion to the Renaissance and to romantic realism. Artists who have most influenced him are Raphael, Pontormo and Michelangelo and Goya.
Some of Bill's recent highlights have taken him around the world. In 2008 he studied Chinese brush painting at the Hangzhou Art Academy in China and in 2009 Renaissance art history in Florence, Milan, Arezzo and Bologna. In 2010 he completed a six week study course in Europe at the Kunsthistorisches and Leopold Museums in Vienna with additional studies at the Vatican, frescoes in Assisi and at Florence's Uffizi Palace as well as painting with Professor Cretara in Florence. In 2010 bill finished 3 commission paintings of Mother Scholastica for the convent, Pious Disciples of the Devine Master. His work received great praise and appreciation from Rome.
In 2011 Bill toured many cities and museums in Spain and to study the work of Goya at the Prado, researching flamenco dancers in Andalusia. In 2013 Bill visited the opening of the new Van Gogh and Rembrandt museums in Amsterdam, Jan van Eyck's Ghent Altarpiece as well as museums in Brussel. He also toured and painted several paintings of the colorful canals in Bruges.
- August 2014 featured in a one man show at the M. Street gallery.
- 2015 "Best of Show" at the Black & White Annual Show
- 2015 one man show of Dancers at the Sorensen Studio.
- 2016 & 2017 Studied Portrait Painting & FigureDrawing at the Prestigious Studio Escalier in Paris.