William T. Wiley (American, 1937 - 2021) Wiley was raised in Indiana, Texas, and Richland, Washington. In high school, his highly influential art teacher, James McGrath, recognized Wiley's talent and encourage him to pursue an art career. Wiley received a full-ride scholarship to the California School of Fine Arts (later to become the San Francisco Art Institute), along with fellow high school friends Robert Hudson and William Allan. There he earned his BFA in 1960 and his MFA two years later. In 1963, Wiley joined the faculty of the UC Davis art department with Bay Area Funk Movement artists Robert Arneson, Roy DeForest, and Pop artist Wayne Thiebaud. During that time Wiley instructed students, including Bruce Nauman, Deborah Butterfield, Richard Shaw, Stephen Kaltenbach and Stephen Laub. According to Dan Graham, the literary, punning element of Nauman's work came from Wiley. Wiley also acknowledges the effect Nauman had on his own work.​Among the many public collections holding works by William T. Wiley are the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Van Abbemuseum, Netherlands, the Walker Art Center, the San Jos Musuem of Art, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the New Britain Museum of American Art, the Nelson-Atkins Museum, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. He was the recipient of the Guggenheim Fellowship Award in 2004.