Werner Wildner (Nashville, Tennessee, 1925-2004) surrealist pencil, gouache, and ink on paper drawing titled “Pinocchio Coloring Book” featuring distorted images of Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket. Titled, top right, signed “K Kopyright Wildner” lower right. Paper label en verso with artist’s name, title, medium, dimensions, and “On loan to V.U. [Vanderbilt University] Dept. of Fine Art” with additional artist’s label, and pencil inscription. Matted and housed under glass in a gilt wood frame. Sight – 11 3/4″ H x 8 5/8″ W. Framed – 18 5/8″ H x 15 3/4″ W. Provenance: Private Southern collection. Biography: Wildner was born in Germany but moved to Detroit with his family as a child and then, as a teenager, to Nashville. He served in the Army in 1944 and went on to study art briefly at the Meinzinger Art School in Detroit. He returned to Nashville to practice commercial art, but by the mid-1950s had decided to pursue his own art career. Whimsical animals and fantastical, often grotesque creatures were a recurring theme of his work. Wildner met with critical and commercial success after a 1962 exhibit of his art at the Nashville site now known as Cheekwood. However, the death of his parents and collapse of his marriage in the 1970’s led him to become reclusive in the last two decades of his life. CONDITION: Overall very good condition with light toning.