C. Wysocki, 73; Art Portrayed a Primitive, Pure America

Charles Wysocki, a painter whose idealized depictions of American life have adorned everything from calendars to collector plates, died of organ failure Monday at the USC Research Hospital. He was 73.

His death followed complications from surgery for a longtime stomach ailment.

Wysocki was a Detroit native and commercial illustrator who began full-time painting in the early 1960s. His art celebrates the American past, featuring rosy-cheeked families in clapboard houses set in unspoiled landscapes. He embedded an American flag in every scene.

His acrylic originals have sold for as much as $30,000, and his fans have been known to stand for hours in a driving rain for a chance to meet him.

Avoiding traditional galleries for a more commercial approach, he built a merchandising empire that put his artwork on jigsaw puzzles, greeting cards, wallpaper, mugs, popcorn tins and T-shirts. By the 1980s, his products were bringing in more than $7 million in annual sales.

Gus Walbolt, whose Concord, Calif., company, AMCAL, began publishing “The Americana Calendar by Charles Wysocki” in 1975, said the artist’s success was due in part to timing.

“Following the Vietnam War, there was a void. You just couldn’t find everyday items reflecting a positive image of America,” Walbolt said. “Then along came Chuck, who offered paintings of rural America and New England coastal scenes that were charming and upbeat. Every one of them included an American flag. They were unlike anything else done at that time.”

Wysocki was the son of an immigrant autoworker and grew up in a Polish enclave of Detroit. After a two-year stint with the Army in Germany, he moved to Los Angeles and studied to become a commercial illustrator at the Art Center, now Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. He formed his own advertising agency in the late 1950s called Group West, which served clients such as Carnation, Chrysler and Dow Chemical.

He turned full time to producing his own art after marrying Elizabeth Lawrence, a UCLA art history graduate and descendant of a San Fernando Valley pioneer family. She introduced him to then-rural parts of the Valley and New England, which inspired Wysocki to begin painting scenes in a primitive style.

He was a favorite artist of Ronald Reagan, who hung one of Wysocki’s homespun New England scenes in his office when he was California governor. In 1995, Wysocki had a show of 33 original paintings at the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace in Yorba Linda. His painting of Nixon and his brothers at their birthplace has been reproduced on T-shirts and note cards by the presidential library.

He was snubbed by the art world as being too commercial. Anne Lamott, in a 1994 review of Wysocki’s art book, “Heartland,” cited his vision of America (a place “where things make sense and love holds ... the past as it ought to have been”) as “the most beautifully concise description of kitsch I can imagine.”

Wysocki said he was proud of his mass market success.

“I like the fact that I appeal to the average guy, and that my calendar, prints and other products are enjoyed by millions,” he said.

Wysocki moved to Lake Arrowhead in the 1990s and opened his own gallery.

He is survived by his wife; sons, David and Matt; and daughter, Millie.