Born in 1928, in Pasadena California, Wally Hedrick was the product of two disparate worlds. His father, Walter Thomas Hedrick from Pennsylvania, was from Quaker decent, and ultimately spent his years selling cars and running a pool hall/gambling establishment in Tijuana, Mexico. His mother, Velma Thurman, on the other hand, was a Bible-thumping Texas Baptist. Wally claims "they fought the Civil War every morning at the breakfast table."

          Whether he acknowledged it or not, Hedrick inherited certain traits from both parents respectively. While holding a strong aversion to gambling, his lifestyle leaned more towards his Quaker heritage than his father's ever did. Wally led a simple life, reserving his energies for his work instead of participating in the general consumer society. "I have owned homes," he said, "and I spent all my time fixing leaky pipes and roofs." His philosophy was to keep his wants to a minimum in order to free himself of the bonds required to support them. Like his mother, alternately, Wally's work tends to have a fire and brimstone quality, reminding the viewer of the perils of the American Dream. Moreover, the dual quality of his father's car dealer/card dealer occupations, influenced, at least subliminally, Wally's delightful sense of word play.

            Wally's career began in 1946, when after a visit to the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) he pushed his model A Ford out of the garage and turned it into a studio. During this period, he joined Progressive Art Workers with Paula Webb, David Simpson, Deborah Remington, Hayward King, Rudolph Jenkins, John Allen Ryan, John Stanley and others. The Progressive Art Workers was a social club which also functioned as a co-operative through which the group the members were able to exhibit their works.

          In 1951, Hedrick was drafted into the United States Infantry and stationed in Korea until 1952. Because he was drafted against his will, actually escorted away by MPs without even having the chance to call his parents, this had a profound effect on Wally's life and work. Through out his career a recurring theme is his anti-war stance. During Vietnam, he actually painted all of his works black, believing he was withdrawing his contribution to western culture. These paintings he later recycled--recycling being another recurring theme in his work--during the Persian Gulf War, slathering them with statements in white acrylic like, "So damn, whose sane?".

          In 1954, Wally co-founded The Six Gallery with David Simpson, Hayward King, John Allen Ryan, Deborah Remington and Jack Spicer. The Six Gallery functioned as an underground gallery for the members and a meeting place for poets and literati alike. Allen Ginsberg first read his poem, "Howl", at The Six Gallery.

          In 1955, Dorothy Miller came to the West Coast and included Hedrick in the "Sixteen Americans" show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Some of the other participants in this show were Hedrick's then wife, Jay De Feo, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella as well as others. According to Walter Hopps, in his forward to a catalogue which accompanied the 1985 show at the San Francisco Art institute, Hedrick decided to ignore the ideal of "career", "fame" and "greatness" to which his peers aspired, and settled for a simpler life, uncomplicated by openings and galleries and cocktail parties. "Going to a museum or a gallery is like going to the moon," Hedrick has been quoted as saying, on more than one occasion, and backed up his statement in this particular instance by giving his tickets to the show in New York to someone he hardly knew.

          Wally taught at various institutions throughout his career including the San Francisco Art Institute, the San Francisco Academy of Art, San Francisco State University, University of California at Davis, San Jose State and the College of Marin, where he held Professor Emeritus status.

            His works have been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The de Young Museum in San Francisco and The Issacs Gallery in Toronto. His work resides in public collections which include The Smithsonian Institute, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, and the de Young Museum to name a few.

           Wally managed to live his life according to his own dictates, producing meaningful, provocative art.

               Although the work is essentially conceptual, the styles can be broken down into three groups: figurative, political and appropriated imagery, sometimes merging two or three of the themes together. The figurative and political pieces are just that. In the text paintings, however, Hedrick takes old Sears and Roebuck Catalogues, seed catalogues and other various staples of Americana, projects them onto vast canvases and alters the lettering along the way to create a sort of post-dada poetry. For many of these large paintings, some of them over 6' high and 5' wide, he uses a 000 brush, a painstakingly slow process.

           Wally died in his home on December 17th, 2003. He lived his life to the fullest, never compromising his ideals and always playing out his ideas. His legacy will live on through his work.                                                                                                                                        --Catherine Conlin, Archivist, Biographer