"Metallic Variant"

16 x 20" print on canvas

by Lyle Ward (1922-1996)Arkansas artist, Lyle Ward, a visionary, once said: “I often feel like I live in a surreal world, that, perhaps, the real world is elsewhere.” His style of abstract expressionism was influenced by several well-known artists, including Thomas Hart Benton and Jackson Pollock. Ward, graduated from the Kansas City Art Institute and was hired in 1956 by the now University of the Ozarks in Clarksville, AR. His paintings spanned the 4 1/2 decades. Seemingly, with each one, a renowned artist emerged. His style changed dramatically from intense texture and pastel colors, uniquely created by blending his oil paint with various textures of sand, to larger diptychs with increasingly vibrant colors and more intriguing images. When someone asked, “Lyle, what is that” or “please describe your painting” He always responded “what do you see?” As he wanted each individual to create their own interpretation.

Helen Walton, who funded many of the buildings at The University of the Ozarks, requested that Ward’s works be cornerstone pieces at the Walton Art Center, where they remain today on loan from his family. An instructor who followed Ward as chain of the Art Department said she was always impressed by his totally unique blend of colors in his oils. Ward built the frames for his very large works – usually enhancing them with gold-leaf. The titles of his paintings such as Ambrosial Talisman, Nouveau Inamorata, and Omnific Silence were often as abstract as the paintings themselves. He painstakingly thought through each one, often delaying the completion of the work by several months.

“A compositional symbol, coupled with a personal statement about myself via past or present references, is perceived by a number of small drawings, sketches and pastel renderings, I then use these ideas and subjective feelings as an impetus for the large piece . . . Nothing in this world can be repeated in the original sense, a change is the essence of being and doing, then try to ‘fix’ a symbolic statement of existence and environment in the continuum of time.”
-    Lyle Ward