Part of the Wisconsin Surrealist movement in the 1930s and 40s, John Wilde was a Surrealist painter with focus on life and death through grotesque, doll-like people in "otherworldly situations". Many of his paintings have old bones, mutated female creatures, and dream-like landscapes, and frequently he painted himself into his work. He also did detailed, colorful and eerily glowing still lifes.

His association with Surrealism began when he was a student at the University of Wisconsin and became a friend of Marshall Glasier, that Wisconsin Surrealist leader and his art teacher. He joined Glasier at salons at his home where artists gathered to discuss European modernism and other avant-garde topics. ...