"Ulfert Wilke is an artist, a collector of art, a sometime museum director and a very human being with a wide range of family concerns as well as generous extensions of friendship to colleagues in many states, most European nations, and Japan. Wilke finds meaning and sustenance in man's symbolic visual communications. He brings a sensitive appreciation to the arts of the past and the present and he learns from them all what they have to offer. One senses an inevitable rightness in WIlke's study and his achievement in the realm of calligraphy. He has become our foremost connector with the great writing artists. His own art is an unprecented examination of the possibilities in every medium and scale fo rthe projection of calligraphy. He not only shows up the present and suggests the future, but he makes the past all new again."

-Gerald Nordland, Ulfert Wilke: A Retrospective

Ulfert Wilke's work has graced the permanent collections of museums worldwide. For a list of museums containing his work, please click here. For a timeline of Ulfert's life, including the dates and locations of major exhibitions of Ulfert's work during his lifetime, please click here.The following is a brief biography.

Ulfert Wilke was an influential modern artist born in Bavaria, Germany in 1907. He was born to two artists- Rudolph Wilke, an admired turn of the century caricaturist, and Molly Brandes, the daughter of Heinrich Brandes. Ulfert's talent surfaced early, and at a young age he began drawing, even supporting himself with illustrations for newspapers. At this time he became well known as a portrait artist. This enabled him study in Paris, where he was classically trained and became exposed to many styles of art.

Ulfert then moved back to Germany. However, due to Hitler's lack of sympathy for artists, and modern artists in particular, he moved to New York in 1938, and subsequently studied art at Harvard before being drafted into the US Army in 1942. After the war, he recieved at Masters degree in Art at University of Iowa in 1947 on the GI Bill. AT this time he married and had three children.

In the 1940s and 50s he was a an art teacher and director at various universities and museums, including the University of Louisville. At this time, he recieved the Guggenheim Fellowship (both in 1959 and 1960), a prestigious grant that the Guggenheim awards artists it deems worthy to travel, study and develop their style. He worked in Munich and Rome.

Ulfert then chose to move to Kyoto, Japan to live and study calligraphy. He developed a keen interest in not only calligraphy but also Japanese art, and became a well known collector. After this, he returned to New York and became a professor at nearby Rutgers University. These years shaped Ulfert as an artist. In New York City, he developed much of his modern style and fostered close friendships with many well known artists such as Max Beckman, Robert Motherwell, Julius Bissier, Lyonel Feininger and George Rickey.

In 1968, Ulfert relocated in Iowa to become the founding director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art. He continued to paint and collect tribal art. He later retired and built a studio in Hawaii, where he lived, painted and collected art until he died in 1987.