Description
Wilder Bentley (1900-1989) was a poet and printer associated with The Archetype Press. This is a hand-written autobiography
entitled
Brief History of the life of Wilder Bentley written November, 1966 in Berkeley, California.
Background
Printmaker, painter, and craftsman Wilder Mayo Bentley (known also as Wilder Bentley the Younger) was born in 1928 in Oklahoma
City. He began his artistic pursuits early on, illustrating broadsides distributed annually by his father Harvey Wilder Bentley
(a printer and printshop owner), before age ten, and learning typesetting from him in his young adulthood.
In 1959 in San Francisco, Bentley set up the Bread & Wine press where he published four pamphlets of poetry by various authors,
and went on to exhibit his work throughout the west. Thus far he has created many folios of his art in a variety of media,
including engravings in wood and copper, watercolors, and digital works. Among these are included the works "Oiomai, a Prophesy"
(1965), "Adrift in Valueland, Vol. I: The Triumph of the Antichrist" (1970), "Native Funk and Flash" (1976-77), which would
be included in a traveling group show that went to museums throughout the southwest; and "Storm's Fury" (2007).
Education: Received A.B. at Univeristy of California, Berkeley, 1951; studied at University of Perugia, Italy, 1952 – 1953.
Private study with Chiura Obata, 1940 – 1965; worked with and was mentored by father Harvey Wilder Bentley at Archetype Press,
Berkeley.
Restrictions
Copyright has not been assigned to the Autry Museum of the American West. All requests for permission to publish or quote
from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Head of Research Services and Archives. Permission for publication is
given on behalf of the Autry Museum of the American West as the custodian of the physical items and is not intended to include
or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.