NEW BRITAIN, CT.-The New Britain Museum of American Art presents New/Now:Gene Wilder, on view through September 4, 2005. NEW/NOW artist Gene Wilder is, without doubt, better known as an actor than a painter. But art has played a key role in Wilder’s life since he first experienced, as a teenager, the work of Vincent van Gogh at an exhibition staged by the Art Institute of Chicago. Duly inspired by the experience, Wilder has been painting ever since. Had he not become an actor, he says, he probably would have become a professional artist.

Wilder’s NEW/NOW exhibition, on view through Sept. 4, is the first Museum show of his watercolor portraits. The exhibition coincides with the release of a newly published autobiography by Wilder, Kiss Me Like a Stranger: My Search for Love and Art which explores, in part, his work as an artist as well as an actor.