The critical essays in this book characterize Wardlaw’s work, placing it in context with the significant art movements of his time, beginning in1947 with non-objective painting and tracing his journey through six decades of art making.

Never confined by categories, Wardlaw explores medium, form, scale, and color on his quest for creative and spiritual resolution. From his Baptist and Native American roots to Judaism, from the rural south to the urban northeast, from painting to sculpture and back again, Wardlaw produced series after series of profound artworks-an exploration across geographical, physical,intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual boundaries.

Wardlaw was a member of the avant-garde art scene in New York City during the 1950s and 1960s and went on to become an important figure in American art, driven by his passion and desires rather than popular trends. His significant and impressive body of work reveals a unique story, both personal and universal, weaving one man’s perspective into the larger canon of twentieth-century art.