May 12 - June 16, 2000

Wilfred "Chick" Huettel describes himself as "a Brothers' boy of the Parkway high school vintage." Following his days at the old CBC, Huettel studied business at Memphis State University and took night classes in drawing and painting from Burton Callicott at the Memphis College of Art. After that, he says his art education was "OJT - on the job training."

Before relocating in 1990 to Santa Rosa Beach, Florida, Huettel was well-known locally and regionally as a painter of the Tennessee River. His paintings can be found in the collections of the Tennessee State Legislature, the Tennessee Governor's Mansion, Union Planters Bank, Holiday Inn Corporation, National Bank of Commerce, and Dunavant Enterprises. He has been represented by galleries in Memphis, New Orleans, Birmingham, Chattanooga, and Washington, D.C. In 1978, the Tennessee General Assembly officially named Huettel "The Tennessee River Painter," for his help in preserving on canvas a part of the state's heritage.

Huettel counts among his influences English landscapist John Constable and the American Hudson River School. He also cites 17th century English satirists Thomas Rowlandson and Thomas Cruikshank - especially in his views of "the human comedy" he finds among the tourists and status-seekers near his Florida home.

"My other place of motivation is St. Bernard Abbey," Huettel says, referring to the monastery in Alabama which raised his orphaned father. "Here is the silent side of my family. The monks are like my uncles and cousins." Huettel often donates small paintings and items to be sold in the abbey store.

The same motivation has inspired him to donate the proceeds from his CBU exhibition to student scholarships at CBU, in honor of "the Brothers who pounded my fanny."

"Life has been very abundant to me," Huettel says, "and I'd love to share its gift with the Christian Brothers who instilled a value that I can never hope to repay."