Beate Wheeler, born in 1932 in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland) was an Abstract Expressionist painter who played a key part in the complex narrative of American art in the Twentieth Century. As a child, Wheeler and her family fled Nazi Germany, arriving in Ellis Island in 1938. Wheeler earned her BFA from Syracuse University in 1954, followed by an MFA from the University of California, Berkeley under the tutelage of Abstract Expressionist painter Milton Resnick. The artist then moved to New York City and became a founding member of the March Gallery (1958- 1960), an artist cooperative, alongside Patricia Passlof, Elaine de Kooning and Robert Beauchamp. Today, galleries and artists working in the Tenth Street Co-ops are considered to have played a significant role in the growth and diversification of styles in the history of American art.
Wheeler’s approach to painting was introspective—her rich palette led her to explore color theory and composition with a distinctive style. Color, light and form are balanced in her works, with autographic gestures and pictorial marks rendering beautiful lyrical abstractions. Earlier paintings from the 1960s and 70s are more tightly rendered than later executions from the 1980s and 90s but unified by her emphasis on process and mark-making. The sense of the material in her approach to painting is evident. Wheeler’s myriads of strokes and color offer an impressionistic type of language, with visual references to a floral lexicon. Acting much like characters of color arranged in coded forms, the dynamic optical fields offer no focal point or compositional center. While a fluid spontaneity appears to make up most of the brushstrokes, there is a system to Wheeler’s mark-making that renders an evocative cohesiveness to the overall colorful composition.
Over her decades-long career, Wheeler dedicated herself fully to her craft and managed an incredible output of paintings and drawings. Her works were exhibited in various galleries during her lifetime, including the National Arts Club, and she sold many paintings to private collectors including Nelson A. Rockefeller. ARTnews dubbed her an “artists’ artist.”