top of page
About:
BIOGRAPHY
LYNDA MCNEUR WISMER was born Lynda Pye in Temuka, New Zealand. She graduated from Otago University with a BA in English and Philosophy, after completing Teachers Training College with a general and arts specialist teaching certificate.
In the late 1940's she, her husband and young family went to England, and then Edinburgh, where he studied theology, and she studied contemporary art on the continent of Europe. From that time, she devoted much of her time to painting, teaching, writing, and being the mother of their family of five children.
1950's
In 1952, the family of three children then, moved to the USA where Lynda studied a post graduate course in film script, short story, novel and article writing at New York University. The twins were born in New York in 1953. When they moved to California in 1955, Lynda studied with Ralph DuCasse at the California School of Fine Arts, in San Francisco.
Her solo art exhibition at the New York City, Barzansky Galleries in 1955, was received enthusiastically. The New York Times critic described her psycho-symbolic paintings as "visionary".
In 1956, her painting series on "Life Journey" depicting ones life and relationship with the "Creator", was exhibited in the LaBaudt Galleries in San Francisco. This was received with marked appreciation by the public and critic, resulting in much philosophical and religious discussion. Four other series were also painted and exhibited in leading colleges and churches in the United States.
Lynda McNeur Wismer's paintings were also shown in group exhibitions in the San Francisco Museum of Art, the Richmond Art Gallery, and a number of smaller galleries in the North California area. She was represented in over 200 private and church collections in the US.
In Chico California, she founded the "Creative Arts Center of Northern California". At the time, it received much appreciation as an important place in the life of the Sacramento Valley creative artists community.
1960's: San Francisco, World trip, Philadelphia, New York:
Lynda then took her family of five children around the world by ship, which took almost a year, meeting up with her husband in the South of Italy. From here, the family traveled Northward through Europe, visiting countless museums, churches, cathedrals, and international cities well known for extraordinary art, architecture, history, and culture, such as: Roma, Florence, Milano, Paris, London, to name but a few.
Arriving in Philadelphia in 1961, Lynda continued her painting, now in the third dimension with experimental and experiential exhibitions that were created to be walked and crawled through, thus surrounding the participant on all sides. This was symbolic of the 'Journey of Life', traveling through numerous momentous sacred Life transitions, from Birth to Death. The work was called "On Being and Time".
In the early 1960's, the children tired of constantly having to pose together with their parents, as the Artist's family, for articles being written about her, requiring photographs of her work and family. Her philosopher theologian husband had recently published his book entitled, Space Time God, in 1959. There was clearly much in common in their respective works, as well as some competition between them. Lynda tells us that in about 1962, LIFE magazine phoned to publish an article featuring her work but that she was unable to do so at the time.
Lynda was moving to New York City, where she continued teaching, providing for her family, and staging Happening Events of her three dimensional painting constructions, now including the simultaneity of installations, jazz improvisations, and performance art.
1960's - 2000's Primarily New York
Lynda's work continued transforming along with her own life learning, most notably the "River Series" in the 1980's and her "Subatomic Series" in the 2000's. Managing her five growing children, and continuing her creative explorations was never easy but she managed to persevere somewhat, nevertheless.
Lynda loved New York and stayed here for the rest of her life, except for 2-3 years in New Zealand, starting in 2000. Here she continued painting and exhibiting, as well as writing, which she began in 1957; writing short stories, articles on art and religion, some published in the New York Times, the New School of Social Research Annual Review, Nexus, Dialogus, and many other art and religious journals in North America.
One of her early publications was a booklet entitled Space Time and the Spirit, in 1959, by East Wind Printers. She also published a book in 2002, entitled, Expulsion from the Garden, and other short stories; printed by Anchor Press, Nelson New Zealand.
Her paintings have been on national exhibit numerous times in America, and in private galleries in England, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey, and New Zealand.
Lynda taught painting in Edinburgh, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, and New York in the USA, and in Dunedin, Nelson, and Auckland, New Zealand.
She died in 2010, living and loving New York to the full.
Lynda's "Subatomic Series", painted between 2000-2010,
was a very powerful finalé to Lynda's many decades
of Abstract Expressionist painting.
In this series, she was exploring the work of Scientists, Astronomers and Quantum Physicists, regarding their synchronistic discoveries of the macro and microcosmic worlds, in particular the 'subatomic, energetic,
aberrational phenomena', as Lynda loved to say.
bottom of page