John Wulp: A man of many resurrections
Introduction by John Guare
New Canaan, CT: CommonPlace Publishing, 2003
“Looking back now, I often feel that instead of living my life, I survived it.” So writes North Haven islander John Wulp in the autobiographical essay that is the central text of this handsome monograph devoted to his art. Born and brought up in New Rochelle, New York, where his father owned a taxicab company, Wulp was humiliated as a child for his feminine ways. Later in life, he was forced to hide his homosexuality, fearing the consequences.
Wulp endured this necessary deceit and many other personal and professional crises by way of his creative work. Creativity was the focus of his existence from as far back as the third grade when he wrote, directed and acted in plays. The theater became a lifelong passion, the setting for triumphs, such as his revival of “Dracula” that ran three years on Broadway and won him a Tony, and for various disasters that left him emotionally, physically and financially spent.
Another passion was painting, also first nurtured in grade school. When asked to bring in an object to paint in Miss Griggs’ watercolor class, the young Wulp chose the small branch of a tree. As this book shows, this humble subject evolved into a major theme. Images of trees are among the painter’s most memorable, from exquisite renderings of apple blossoms to a series devoted to a Vinalhaven orchard.
Studies of Queen Anne’s lace, daffodils, lilacs and a red amaryllis are also outstanding. Several interiors capture the wonderful light and diverse angles of a Maine island home. Earlier work includes a four-panel Japanese screen titled “Snow-covered Privet and Board Fence, Nantucket.” The Nantucket landscape also inspired a series of abstract-geometric acrylic paintings from 1969 that are now in the collection of the American Place Theater.
Wulp has also painted portraits over the years. While not as in-your-face as Lucien Freud or Alice Neel, he adheres to the real, as in the portrait of actress Sigourney Weaver, her daughter, Charlotte, and their dog, Petals. Not everyone has appreciated his depiction: the actor Frank Langella cut up his likeness into small pieces.
The book includes examples of Wulp’s photographs and stage sets. The former include black-and-white photos of such New York City cultural icons as Julian Beck, director of the Living Theatre, and the dancer Merce Cunningham. Among the stage designs are futuristic backdrops for Henrik Ibsen’s “The Master Builder” and a series of craggy landscapes made for John Guare’s “Marco Polo Sings a Solo.”
While he has shown his work at the Frost Gully Gallery in Portland (and will have a show at the Farnsworth Museum opening in May), Wulp is probably best known in Maine as the producer and director of “Islands.” In his essay, he recounts the events that led to the creation of this community-created musical based on the lives of the people of North Haven and Vinalhaven. “Islands” was performed at the New Victory Theatre in New York City a mere eight days after 9/11.
“When I first moved to Maine,” Wulp writes toward the end of his self-portrait, “I thought my life was over.” He credits the students at the North Haven Community School for sustaining him, and it is to them that this book is dedicated.
After undergoing bypass surgery last year, Wulp was unable to paint. Knowing the resurrections this artist has pulled off in his 75 years, it comes as no surprise to learn from a recent article in the Bangor Daily News that he has taken up the brush again. Lucky us.
Carl Little will present a slide lecture on Maine art at the Wadsworth Athenaeum in early March. He is director of communications at the Maine Community Foundation.