Two (2) Werner Wildner (Nashville, Tennessee, 1925-2004) surrealist drawings. 1st item: Pencil and gouache drawing on paper titled "The Mortar Pig" depicting a mortar in the shape of a pig. Titled and initialled "W" lower center. Matted and housed under glass in a black wooden frame. Sight - 16 5/8" H x 11" W. Framed - 26" H x 20" W. 2nd item: Pencil and gouache on paper drawing depicting an embryo with a skull visage. Initialled "S. E. W." lower right. Artist's label en verso. Matted and housed under glass in a wooden frame. Sight - 11 1/2" H x 9 1/8" W. Framed - 21 1/4" H x 17 1/4" W. Provenance: Private Southern Collection. Biography: Wildner was born in Germany but moved to Detroit with his family as a child and then, as a teenager, to Nashville. He served in the Army in 1944 and went on to study art briefly at the Meinzinger Art School in Detroit. He returned to Nashville to practice commercial art, but by the mid-1950s had decided to pursue his own art career. Whimsical animals and fantastical, often grotesque creatures were a recurring theme of his work. Wildner met with critical and commercial success after a 1962 exhibit of his art at the Nashville site now known as Cheekwood. However, the death of his parents and collapse of his marriage in the 1970's led him to become reclusive in the last two decades of his life. Provenance: Private Middle TN Collection.