School designer John Wyckoff’s painted country scenes get spotlight

John Wyckoff gained fame for the gigantic, 3-D artworks you can see here and there around the Clark County landscape. But it was his love of 2-D designs that saw him through to the end.

Wyckoff, who died at age 61 in 2012 of an aggressive form of thyroid cancer, was a prizewinning architect of local school buildings. He was a partner at LSW Architects and the lead planner behind innovative and grand buildings such as Discovery Middle School, Thomas Jefferson Middle School and Skyview High School.

Today’s First Friday Art Walk opening should burnish Wyckoff’s reputation for something completely different: Sweet rustic scenes from his beloved Montana. Red barns in yellow fields. Quiet homes and quiet forests. Rusting jalopies and stands of birch trees.

“Painting was his first passion,” said Wyckoff’s widow, Marilyn. But when he was busy working 18 hours a day as an architect, she said, art took a back seat. When health issues forced him to retire, he was able to pursue that passion again. “Art was something he really poured himself into,” she said. For a man of deep faith, she added, “it was also an act of worship” and a way to show his gratitude for every single day.

Before he died, Wyckoff was gratified that his paintings were starting to get noticed, Marilyn said, with works requested by the Yellowstone Art Museum for its annual art auction and juried into the annual art show in Bigfork, Mont. When he didn’t survive to see one of his paintings displayed at Bigfork, Marilyn said, it was one of his sons who went in his stead. People’s response to the late artist’s work was “heartwarming,” she said.

Since then, Wyckoff’s family has digitally scanned and stored the best of his paintings. You can view them and purchase prints via Fine Art America (www.fineartamerica.com), an online clearinghouse for professional artists. Proceeds from sales all go to charity, Marilyn said.

Rediscovered

Early this year, painter Tom Relth set up a basement studio at Boomerang, the new charitable second-hand shop on Main Street downtown, and became the curator of Boomerang’s ongoing art shows. Somewhere among that basement detritus, he said, he discovered a handful of long-lost Wyckoff paintings. “I didn’t know how they got here and I still don’t. I set them aside and hid them, actually,” he said.

Relth had gotten to know Wyckoff’s widow, Marilyn, because she visits Boomerang on Wednesdays to read during children’s storytime. He showed her what he’d found, and she told him she had more of the same in storage — paintings that have never been seen, and some that were never even finished. Relth suggested “how cool it would be to show these works, unfinished and newly discovered works,” he said.

The show, which opens today and stays up all month, features more than 30 finished and unfinished paintings by Wyckoff. You’ll be able to order prints at the show or via Fine Art America.

But, Marilyn added, “being purchased or not was not the point” for her husband. “Bringing a smile to someone’s face, maybe resonating with a childhood memory — that’s what it was all about.”

Music and more

Also on display at Boomerang during September will be paintings and drawings by Relth and by April Van Dyck, a Ryderwood painter and musician. Van Dyck and her husband, Paul, will perform on flute and keyboard during the reception.