Some notes, mostly taken from the website of the Aras gallery (http://www.arasgallery.com/profile.php?id=49)
Wilding was a German, born in a small town called Grunsdtadt (Greenstate?) in the Rhine (south west Germany) in 1927. It looks like a small industrial town in the wine growing region that had an especially large Jewish community that was completely obliterated by the Nazi persecution - note in Wikipedia mentions a memorial service held in Grunstadt in 2007 to commemorate the victims of Kristallnacht, August 1933. I wonder how that affected Wilding? - perhaps explains some of his interest in art as a 'democratic' phenomenon?
He studied History of Art at the Academy of Arts in Maintz (called Magonza in the Aras note, the Spanish name for the town). Maintz is also in the Rhine region, not far from Grundstadt - interesting because as well as a big wine-growing reputation (founder of French champagne house Krug was born there). the town is also centre of the glass company Schott and chemical factory Werner and Mertz.
The Aras gallery notes that he also attended courses at the Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart to the south. It looks as though this is a place where a number of big names in early op art / geometric abstraction were teaching or studying - the Art School website notes Adolf Hoelzel, Willi Baumeister, Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer.
Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer seem to have been celebrated artists of the Bauhaus movement - started by Walter Gropius in 1919 and formally ended in the 1930's - although probably still influential in Wilding's time. Based in Weimar and then moved to Dessau - northern Germany. for citation, use Griffith Winton, Alexandra. "The Bauhaus, 1919–1933". In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm (August 2007)
to find more, see http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/bauh/hd_bauh.htm
the basic idea was to integrate art and design and production, to 'dematerialise' traditional forms and reduce them to their essence.
Itten did teach in Stuttgart but had moved on by then to Vienna. but his theory of contrast seems relevant
'Itten developed a general theory of contrast, the main theme of which was the "clair / obscure contrast", as the basis for this course (at the Bauhaus). This was treated in various assignments: first in the form of checker-board patterns, then in abstract and finally in realistic works. Classical pictures were also analysed with the same aim in mind. By dividing it up into squares, the student was induced to work through the entire area of the picture with awareness, and to make a new decision each time regarding the respective grey value.http://froebelweb.tripod.com/web2018.html'
Wilding was taught in Stuttgart by Willi Baumeister - clearly a very influential figure on the German scene just after the war when Wilding was getting started: Baumeister died in 1955, but In 1949 he became the co-founder of the artist group Gegenstandlose (The Group of Nonrepresentational Artists), which threw its first exhibition called ZEN 49 in 1950. see http://www.willi-baumeister.com/
He sounds like an incredibly inspiring artist and individual - for more, see
May also be worth looking at Hans Sedlmayr's thesis of a “loss of the center” (“Verlust der Mitte”). Art in Crisis: The Lost Center- Hans Sedlmayr, Art In Crisis: The Lost Center (New Brunswick, 2006 [1948/1957]). ISBN 1412806070
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