Will Work For … exhibit reception and program with Mike Wimmer

On Thursday, March 21, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. the Oklahoma History Center will host a public reception to formally open the Will Work For … exhibit. Light refreshments will be served. This exhibit is comprised of 17 portraits by Mike Wimmer and is on display in the Vose Atrium Gallery. It is open for public viewing Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The exhibit is projected to remain on display through June 2019.

Wimmer describes himself as a “natural observer of people and all the differences that make us unique.” It was this diversity that he wished to portray in the Will Work For … project. His inspiration for this came when he noticed all of the people on street corners holding signs that state that they “Will Work For Food.” He began to ask people of every social group what they would work for; what inspires them as individuals to sacrifice their lives, their labor, and their love enough that they will work for it. His models for this project have included a carpenter, mayor, museum director, other artists, a TV weatherman, and a former Miss America, among others. In each portrait, the individual is holding the iconic cardboard sign that completes the phrase “Will Work For …”

Wimmer is an Oklahoma-born artist who began sketching and painting at age 6 and began selling his artwork at age 11. He received his undergraduate degree in fine arts from the University of Oklahoma and his master’s degree at the University of Hartford in Hartford, Connecticut. He has produced artwork for some of the largest corporations in the world including Procter and Gamble, Nabisco, and Disney, and has painted portraits of some of the nation’s most prestigious citizens. Wimmer has painted more than 300 covers for almost every major publisher in the United States. More than 40 of his pieces have hung in the Oklahoma State Capitol. Wimmer is currently professor of illustration at the prestigious Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia.

“The greatest enjoyment of being an artist is the extreme joy of bringing an idea to life that, just five minutes before, did not exist,” said Wimmer. For more information please call 405-522-0765.