Paul Waggoner was an unconventional art dealer who represented non-mainstream artists in galleries that became convivial salons thanks to his oversize gift for hospitality.
Mr. Waggoner, 74, was found dead of a heart attack in his Rogers Park apartment on Monday, March 3, said his nephew, James Hineman.
Mr. Waggoner specialized in Caribbean art and “outsider art,” which he displayed in galleries that usually were an extension of his home.
“He showed people who would not be able to get in what would be considered a top-notch gallery, because they didn’t have the accolades,” said Pat Aiken, a multimedia artist in Tucson, whose work was shown in Mr. Waggoner’s galleries. “He didn’t care about that.”
Mr. Waggoner opened his first gallery in the mid-1970s in a storefront at 2269 N. Lincoln Ave. He lived in the building’s second floor. Haitian art, which he had discovered while traveling in the West Indies, was his initial focus, but he quickly expanded to other off-the-beaten-path pieces.
He subsequently had galleries on Ontario and Oak Streets, on the Near South Side and in Logan Square. He lived with his art and welcomed visitors into his life.
“My home life is involved in my business,” Waggoner said in a 1985 Tribune story. “It is a lifestyle.”
Sporting a bushy mustache and later a beard, and driving an old, white Jaguar during his early days in Lincoln Park, Mr. Waggoner cut a distinctive figure and cultivated a dedicated following, although the hard-drinking parties he threw led to an occasional contretemps.
“He had a short fuse. All of us who have gathered around him have been on his [enemies] list,” said Susann Craig, a board member of Chicago’s Intuit Gallery.
But his keen eye for art, his gift for setting up exhibitions and his abilities as a cook and raconteur made his galleries an attractive destination.
“When you walked in, it was well put together; it was not junky,” Aiken said. “People came for a show and stayed as a friend.”
The galleries were never big moneymakers, and Mr. Waggoner moved when he could get a better deal on the rent. His so-called “International Arts Club” was in a building at 2362 S. Cottage Grove Ave. that was torn down in 1999.
He dubbed his last exhibition and party there “Our Last Blast.”
“They’re paving paradise,” Waggoner complained at the time.
“I would not say it was a well-thought-out business plan,” Craig said.
“He always lived on the edge, in a place that was about to be demolished.”
Mr. Waggoner grew up in the tiny town of Lyons in southern Indiana, served in the Army and studied at Indiana University.
He spent 11 years in New York as a salesman, first with Tiffany & Co. and later with Caspari paper and greeting cards.
There are no other immediate survivors.
A remembrance will be held at 3 p.m. March 29 in Second Presbyterian Church, 1936 S. Michigan Ave.
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ttjensen@tribune.com
