Another great sculptor that loved working with quite ordinary or ugly people doing their basic daily chores. He is considered the Pop Art of sculpture.
Found his own technique of painting around age of forty.
A show for the artist in 2009.
A piece titled ” Drug Addict” by the artist.
A brief biography about the artist.
low price range: $50,000
high price range: $410,000
mediums used: sculpture with resin,fiberglass, Bondo ( a polyester resin that is used to repair cars and wood)
The artist was born in 1925 in Minnesota. He attended several colleges. Luther College, University of Washington, and finishing at Malcalaster College. For his masters studies he attended the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Started to work in the mid 1960s casting figures from fiberglass and vinyl, similar to the technique that John Andrea was using. His works in the late 1960s had a theme of disaster and violence. Riots due to race, abortion done in back alleys, and Vietnam. He would cast the figures in fiberglass, paint them, then dress them in second hand clothes. In the 1970s he began to work with every day people not doing violent acts but rather in their everyday life.
His work titled Woman Eating is in the Smithsonian Museum collection.
The artist lived in New York City in the late 1960s and moved to Florida in 1973 and would live out his life there. He passed away in 1996.
I was able to find books about the artist and they are in the gallery. On amazon the two hardcover books started at $30 and the paperback titled written with Martin Bush was going for $3.
Please take a few minutes to watch the videos of this outstanding artist. I love these sculptures as they are true representations of the time period from the person and their hair style to the clothes they were. I have tremendous respect for the artisans who make wax figures, but similar to John DeAndrea the way these artist applied paint to make the characters have a convincing and realistic skin tone amaze me to this day. And the touch of adding the second hand clothes and to capture the esseance of a person and figure rather than exaggerate beauty is a refreshing change in modern art. This artist was able to see the beauty that exists in all of us as we go through our daily chores such as mowing the lawn, going grocery shopping, or mending clothes.
If you are at the Smithsonian please try to find this artist, you won’t be sorry!
Keep learning!
D
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