We all have passions and activities that we love. Rarely are these hidden from view or known only to a closely-connected few. For Bernard Gilardi, a printing company dot etcher, his secret passion was painting. For over forty years, he would descend into his Milwaukee basement and paint. He never exhibited his work, nor did anyone ever visit and evaluate his output until after his death in 2008.

What his stunning output of almost 400 works reveals is an artist both very much aware of his times and environment as well as what other artists were doing; he may not have been part of the Milwaukee art scene, but his obsessive maintenance of clippings, notes and sketches prove he was very much aware of what was going on beyond the basement. Essentially self-taught, Gilardi’s work deals with such subjects as race relations, American history, fantasy, sexuality, portraiture and personal experience. His remarkable sense of imagination, use of color and surrealism make Gilardi one of the most remarkable artistic finds in recent years and places him firmly in the firmament of “outsider” Wisconsin artists.

This is the first major museum exhibition of Bernard Gilardi’s paintings and the MWA would like to thank Mary Gilardi, her family, and Debra Brehmer of the Portrait Society Gallery for making this show possible.