Ron Wigginton

Ron Wigginton (born October 1, 1944 in Oakland, California) is an American artist and landscape architect. His paintings and sculptures are found in West Coast museums and many private collections. His landscapes are known for their narrative and aesthetic qualities, and his artwork typically involves and explores human perceptions of natural and built landscapes. Wigginton is considered to be one of the first Landscape Architects to approach the design of a landscape as a conceptual work of art, for which he has received international recognition through publication and awards.

Wigginton graduated from El Cerrito (California) High School. He received a B.F.A. from the University of Montana and an M.F.A from the University of Oregon. As a young man he studied briefly with painter David Simpson in the Bay Area, and in Montana he worked with ceramicist and sculptor Rudy Autio. In Oregon he met and befriended painter Charles Stokes, later sharing studios and exhibiting with him in Portland and Seattle. In 1973 he met sculptor J.B. Blunk, with whom he maintained a friendship and working relationship until Blunk’s death in 2002. In the book San Diego Artists (1988), Wigginton tells of an early and ongoing affinity for Japanese culture which led to a hitchhiking trip through Japan in 1970. There he met Japanese potters and Living National Treasures, including Shoji Hamada, Fujiwara Kei, and others: “I was able to travel through the central spine of the country tracking down the ancient dragon kilns and meeting masters, very unusual people, very inspiring."

He returned to Japan in 1977 for an extended stay, establishing a painting studio close to the Mizumi Gallery in Tokyo and meeting international artists including Agnes Martin. On his return to the U.S., he settled in San Diego, where he studied with Niwa landscape master Takendo Arii.

During the 1970s, Wigginton taught painting and sculpture at Cornish School of the Arts in Seattle. Paintings and sculptures from this period and afterward are held in numerous private and public collections, including the Oakland Museum of California, the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Crafts, Portland, Oregon, the Center for Folk Art and Contemporary Crafts, San Francisco, the Rainer Bank Collection, Seattle, and the Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, Washington.

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