The artist William T. Wiley in 1997 Jack Fulton
William T. Wiley, a beloved Bay Area artist and teacher and one of the founders of the Funk Art movement which included Peter Saul, Robert Arneson, Ed Kienholz, Bruce Conner, Jim Nutt and others has died, aged 83. His son Ethan Wiley confirmed to
that Wiley died from complications related to Parkinson’s disease, which the artist had lived with since 2014.
Wiley was born in Bedford, Indiana, in 1937. His father was a construction foreman who frequently moved the family around the country, and they ultimately settled in Washington State. In 1960 Wiley graduated from the California School of Fine Arts (now known as the San Francisco Art Institute), with a bachelor of fine arts degree and in 1962 earned his master of fine arts from the same institution.