William Thomas Wiley (October 21, 1937April 25, 2021) was an American artist. His work spanned a broad range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, performance, and pinball. At least some of Wiley's work has been referred to as funk art. Early life and education William Thomas Wiley was born on October 21, 1937, in Bedford, Indiana. He was raised in Indiana, Texas, and in Richland, Washington. Wiley moved to San Francisco in the 1950s to study at the California School of Fine Arts (now known as the San Francisco Art Institute); where he earned his BFA degree in 1960 and his MFA degree two years later. Wiley was classmates with Robert Hudson. Career In 1963, Wiley joined the faculty of the University of California, Davis (U.C. Davis) art department with Bay Area Funk Movement artists Robert Arneson and Roy DeForest. During that time Wiley instructed students including Bruce Nauman, Deborah Butterfield, Stephen Laub, and Christopher Brown. According to Dan Graham, the literary, punning element of Nauman's work came from Wiley. Wiley also acknowledged the effect Nauman had on his own work. His first solo exhibition was held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1960. In the late 1960s Wiley collaborated with the minimalist composer Steve Reich and introduced him to Bruce Nauman. Wiley continued to build upon his growing stature as a major artist with works appearing in the Venice Biennial (1980) and Whitney Biennial (1983). He also had major exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (1981), M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco (1996), and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2005). In 2009, the Smithsonian American Art Museum presented a retrospective of Wiley's career titled What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect, from October 2, 2009 through January 24, 2010. A review in the Wall Street Journal stated: "Mr. Wiley's work is unlike any other in recent art... He is less a contemporary artist than a national treasure." In 2010, the retrospective moved to the Berkeley Art Museum, from March 17 to July 18. The catalogue for the retrospective, "What's It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect", was co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and University of California Press. In 2017, Wiley was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Bivins Gallery in Dallas, Texas, William T. Wiley: Where the Rub Her Meats the