John Wesley

Donald Judd envisioned a permanent space in Marfa for the work of John Wesley from early in the museum’s history. In 1982 Judd invited Wesley to Marfa, where he completed a series of paintings that form the nucleus of Chinati’s holdings. Chinati inaugurated the John Wesley Gallery in October 2004. The gallery features a concentrated retrospective of Wesley’s paintings from the past four decades.

The John Wesley Gallery is housed in a former horse stable situated near the last of the six Dan Flavin buildings. The collection of paintings, works on paper, and prints, which occasionally rotate, includes works that span the years 1963 to the present. Wesley’s singular style incorporates a limited color palette (pastel blues and pinks dominate), a bold graphic clarity, and a sly humor, often tinged with eroticism.

The works currently on view in the gallery are:

Al Capone Flouting the Law, 1970
Captives, 1983
Chateau, 1983
Choir, 1988
Dancing Frogs and Waiting Shark, 1962
Day Titanic, 1984
Hannah in Shades, 1989
Jack Frost, 1971
Mattress Cloud, 1981
Physical, 1982
Six-Legged Sheep, 1993
Slowly Ascending Camel, 1966
Tour de France, 1982
Triangular Cloud, 1982
Untitled (Lion Repetition), 1988

John Wesley was born in 1928 in Los Angeles and passed away in 2022 in New York. Major exhibitions include: John Wesley, Fondazione Prada, Venice, Italy (2009); The Bumsteads, Fredericks & Freiser, New York (2006–07); John Wesley: Works on Paper since 1960, Museum Haus Lange, Krefeld and Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Germany (2005–06); Don’t Eat My Eagle: Paintings from the 1960’s, Fredericks & Freiser, New York (2005); John Wesley Paintings 1961–2000, MoMA/P.S.1, New York (2001); John Wesley: Paintings, Gemalde, Schilderijen, 1963–1992, Portikus, Frankfurt, Germany, and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1993).