Gary Willoughby

Los Angeles, CA

Willoughby is a contemporary painter born in Indiana in the 1940’s. Based in Los Angeles he has a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Southern California. He is a professor at West Los Angeles College where he has taught drawing, painting and design for over 40 years.

Notable exhibitions: Hunsaker-Schlesinger Gallery, Los Angeles. Ivory Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco. Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta. As well as Space Gallery, Los Angeles.

His work is in many public and private collections worldwide including the Dynasty Club Hong Kong, IBM Corporation Atlanta, First Winthrop Corporation Boston and many others.

He is a contemporary mixed media painter, working with acrylic paint on various materials such as cast latex, canvas and wooden panels. He is best known for his early acrylic on latex paintings many of which were commissioned on a large scale. He has consistently explored interesting and nontraditional surfaces on which to paint, constructing his paintings from surfaces he creates and builds when not using traditional canvas, which he still uses as well.

His most recent works are the Irony series from 2020, which dealt with unscientific beliefs from 1940s and 1950’s advertising. They were painted with acrylic on constructed wood lath, which have a fragmented look reminiscent of old advertising seen on billboards and barns in the Midwest of that Ime. He uses the clown/jester figure in his work as the Flim-Flam man, or snake oil salesman.

His Clue series from 2024 deals with concepts of 1940’s crime magazines coupled with actual found objects displayed in a shadow box format adjacent to a paining of a related Detective magazine.

His most current series of work in 2025 returns him to the traditional wood panel paintings combining once again to the clown/ Jester now as a criminal.

Born

1943 Winamac, Indiana

Education

1972 BS Indiana State University

1975 MFA University of Southern California

1971-1972

Indiana State University Undergrad teaching assistant

1973-1975

USC Graduate Teaching Assistant

1990

Richard Iri Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1987

Ivory/ Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1984

Ivory/ Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco, CA

2018

El Cuervo Gallery El Segundo CA

1992

Sandy Carson Gallery, Denver, CO

1990

Richard Iri Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1989

Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA

1987

Fay Gold Gallery, Atlanta, GA

1985

Ivory/ Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1983

Ivory/ Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1982

Ivory/ Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1980

Ivory/ Kimpton Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1979

Space Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1977

Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles, CA

1975

Laguna Art Museum, Laguna, Ca

St. Louis Marriott, St. Louis, MO

Sheraton Centre Hotel, New York, NY

Grand Hyatt Wailea Hotel, Maui, HI

Dynasty Club, Hong Kong

Ocean Place Hilton, Ocean Place, NJ.

Hyatt City Place Hotel, Dallas, TX

Alder & Mason, Westwood, CA

Grand Hyatt Hotel, Washington, D.C.

Hyatt Regency Hotel, Grand Cayman Island

Mr Barry Brimmell, San Francisco, CA

Ms Juliana Hanner, Redondo Beach, Ca

Dr Bruce Harger, Santa Barbara, Ca

Ms Devon Herkelrath, Santa Barbara, Ca

Mr Tom Hittren, San Francisco, Ca

Mr Bob Fisher, San Francisco, Ca

Mr Ron Maseroni, Mill Valley, Ca

Mr Phil Edwards, San Francisco, Ca

Mr Thomas Uterberg, New York, NY

Ms Miriam Mondry, San Francisco, Ca

Mr Dillon Casey, San Francisco, Ca.

Mr and Mrs Robert Tuch, Los Angeles, Ca

Mr Jack Hruska, Los Angeles, Ca

Ms Sandy Krause, Beverly Hills, Ca

Ms Taghinia-Milani, New York, NY