Ed Ruscha

Ed Ruscha

American Post-War artist, Ed Ruscha was born in 1937 in Omaha, Nebraska and grew up in Oklahoma City where his family relocated in 1941. He moved to Los Angeles after graduating high school to attend the Chouinard Art Institute (now the California Institute of Arts). 

After graduating, he worked as a graphic designer for an L.A advertising agency which greatly influenced his work as an artist. His early interest in commercial art inspired him to create artwork that challenged traditional hierarchies of painting and prevalent artistic styles such as Abstract Expressionism. Although he continues to reject the labels of Pop or Conceptual artist, Ruscha certainly incorporates elements of both artistic movements into his paintings and photographs. Borrowing from tropes of advertising, he creates word-paintings which explore the noise and fluidity of language. The isolated words and phrases featured in his paintings and prints are often glib in nature and stem from pervasive colloquial clichés and vernacular culture. Since his early years as an artist, Ruscha has also been greatly influenced by the landscape of his home city, often incorporating vacant parking lots, swimming pools and nightspots into his compositions. 

Ruscha is known for employing unusual and untraditional media in his paintings and drawings. Some examples include gunpowder, blood, fruit juice and Pepto Bismol. 

Ruscha’s first solo show was held at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1962. Other major exhibitions have been held at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Centre George Pompidou in Paris, The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, among many others around the globe. He has also been the subject of several retrospectives in New York, Washington, D.C, London and Paris. Notably, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts in Letters in 2001. The artist continues to live and work in Los Angeles.

Richard Serra

Richard Serra

Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and printmaker known for his large-scale sheet metal works. Born in San Francisco in 1938, he studied English Literature at the University of California, Berkeley in 1957 but later transferred to the University of California, Santa Barbara where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1961. From 1961-1964, Serra studied painting in the Master’s program at Yale University where he was greatly inspired by artists Philip Guston and Josef Albers. While in university, he supported himself by working in steel mills, surrounded by a material that would greatly shaped his career as an artist.

Serra’s first sculptures were abstract, process-based, and made of non-traditional material such as fiberglass, rubber, and molten lead. In 1969, he worked with the process of both cutting and stacking materials to create large structures that could balance on their own. This process contributed to the creation of his minimalist works, which he is most well known for today, many of which are commissioned public art pieces. In addition to sculpture, Serra has also worked and experimented with performance, video, prints, and drawing.

Serra lives and continues to work in Tribeca, New York as well as in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. His sculptures can be found in the collections of the MoMA and the Guggenheim Museum in New York, NY, as well as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in California.

Frank Stella

Frank Stella

Born in Malden, Massachusetts in 1936, Frank Stella has become a renowned American painter, sculptor and printmaker. Stella attended the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts where he first learned about Abstract Modernists Josef Albers and Hans Hofmann. Later, he attended Princeton University where he majored in History. Stella took frequent visits to New York galleries during his years of study, exposing himself to artists such as Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, and Jasper Johns.

After graduating in 1958, Stella moved to the Lower East Side of New York where he quickly garnered attention in the art world. At the young age of 23, the MoMA purchased one of his works and included four in its 1959-1960 exhibition, Sixteen Americans. Famed gallery owner, Leo Castelli, decided to represent Stella’s work in that same year. In 1970, he was the youngest artist to have a retrospective at the MoMA and he was the first living artist to have a second retrospective seventeen years later.

Stella’s work emphasizes form rather than content. He famously referred to one of his paintings as “a flat surface with paint on it – nothing more.” His abstract paintings have no pictorial illusion, nor any psychological or metaphorical references. His artistic style, characterized by colour variations and circular motifs, is credited with influencing major movements such as Minimalism, Color Field Painting, and Post-Painterly Abstraction. Moreover, he inspired major theorists such as Carl Andre, Donald Judd, and Michael Fried. The esteemed Clement Greenberg regarded Stella’s work as corresponding with his concepts of flatness, the integrity of the picture plane, and the optical integrity of compositions.

Today, Stella lives and works in New York City. He is one of the most recognized and well-known postwar American artists.

Donald Sultan

Donald Sultan

American painter, sculptor and printmaker, Donald Sultan, was born in Asheville, North Carolina in 1951. He obtained his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1973 and his Master of Fine Arts at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1975. During his studies, Sultan abandoned conventional methods of painting and began experimenting with different techniques, surfaces, and media. Today, he is best known for his large-scale, still-life paintings where he employs industrial materials such as tar, enamel, and vinyl tiles.

His fame in the art world first stemmed from his involvement in New York’s “New Image” movement. His first solo exhibition was at Artists Space in New York in 1977. In the 1970s and 1980s, his work was exhibited at the Mary Boone Gallery, the Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum, and modern art museums in Indianapolis, New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles. His art is both nonfigurative and representational, exploring the boundaries between the everyday and the abstract. Later in his career, Sultan transitioned his focus from industrial subjects to subjects of nature.

His work has been part of numerous exhibitions and resides in prominent public and private collections internationally including the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois, the National Gallery of Australia in Parkes, Tate Modern in London, England, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., the Guggenheim Museum and the Whitney Museum, in New York, NY, among others. In addition to numerous grants and honours, Sultan was awarded honorary degrees from the Corcoran School of Art, Washington D.C., the New York Academy of Art, and the University of North Carolina. Today, he lives and works in New York City.

Wayne Thiebaud

Wayne Thiebaud

Wayne Thiebaud is an American painter associated with the Pop Art movement known for his colourful paintings of everyday objects. His work showcases objects such as pies, lipsticks, paint cans, ice cream cones, pastries, and hot dogs. With his use of heavy pigments, exaggerated colours, and starkly defined shadows Thiebaud developed a unique style that recalls the aesthetics of advertisements of his era.

Thiebaud was born in Mesa, Arizona in 1920 and his family moved to Long Beach, California when he was an infant. When he was young, he apprenticed at Walt Disney Studios for a summer where he drew ‘in-betweens’ for characters such as Goofy, Pinocchio, and Jiminy Cricket. In 1938, he began working as a cartoonist in both California and New York. From 1942-1945, he worked as an artist for the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Force. In 1949, he studied at the San Jose State University and later at the California State University, Sacramento.

After teaching for several years in California, Thiebaud moved to New York City where he became friends with Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline, and also became influenced by the works of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns. When Thiebaud moved back to California, he began painting and experimenting with subject matter and style. His work was included in one of the first Pop Art exhibitions in 1962 at the Sidney Janis Gallery, New York, which gained him national recognition. Although associated with the Pop Art movement, Thiebaud does not classify himself as a Pop artist. He thinks of himself merely as a painter. In fact, he dislikes the flat and mechanical style of many Pop artists.

Thiebaud’s work is in the permanent collections of many museums and institutions across the United States such as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Phoenix Art Museum in Arizona. In 1994, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Clinton and the Lifetime Achievement Award for Art from the American Academy of Design in 2001.

Manolo Valdés

Manolo Valdés

Manolo Valdés is a contemporary Spanish artist who is internationally recognized as an established painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was born in Valencia Spain and enrolled in the Escuela de Bellas Artes de San Carlos in 1957 where he studied for several years. There, he met Rafael Solbes and Juan Antonia Toledo, who, together in the 60s, founded Equipo Crónica, a Spanish manifestation of the Pop Art movement. The group lasted until 1981, during which time Valdés participated in more than 60 solo exhibitions. His artworks from this period are politically charged and are characterized by the use of unconventional materials and crudely-applied paint. 

After the group dissolved, Valdés continued to work independently and developed a style that became distinctly his own. His inspiration largely derives from the unique styles and techniques belonging to the Old Masters. He frequently employs elements of old motifs and traditional compositions of Art History in his body of work. The female figure is also frequently featured as a subject in his oeuvre, rendered in an unrefined and pared-down artistic style.  

Valdés’ work is included in many public collections internationally, including the Centre Georges Pompidou in Pairs, the Kunstmuseum in Basil, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, among many others. He has received various awards, including the National Award for Fine Arts in Spain and the Medal of the Order of Andrés Bello in Venezuela.

The artist currently lives and works in both New York and Madrid.

Tom Wesselmann

Tom Wesselmann

Tom Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1931. He attended University in his hometown to study psychology but was forced to put his education on hold after being drafted into the U.S. Army. During his time in the army, Wesselmann began drawing and decided to pursue a career as a cartoonist. Upon his return home, he fulfilled this desire and was successful in designing comic strips for men’s magazines and humour periodicals. His cartoons were often quite sexual in nature, which would later influence his fetishistic artwork. 

In 1956, Wesselmann was admitted to Cooper Union, one of the most prestigious art schools in the United States where, under the influence of Willem de Kooning, he developed an interest in landscape painting and nudes. He abandoned his job and pursued his art practice full-time. His early work as a cartoonist and his interest in his Pop Art predecessors influenced his artistic sensibility characterized by sensual colours and a slick aesthetic. With its fetishistic isolation of erogenous zones (hair, lips, nipples, teeth), Wesselmann’s imagery is deemed the most blatantly erotic of the Pop artists.

Wesselmann is considered one of the major artists of the New York Pop Art movement. His work has been included in numerous solo and group exhibitions worldwide and he is represented in many of the world’s most prestigious collections including the Tate in London, England, the MoMa in New York, NY, the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles in California, among others.

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol is one of the world’s most prolific artists of his era. During his lifetime, he redefined art reproduction and pioneered the Pop Art movement. Today, he is widely considered an icon and is remembered for his art practice and lifestyle, both of which involved the celebration and proliferation of consumerist culture.

Warhol was born in 1928 into a working-class neighbourhood in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. During his childhood, he suffered from Sydenham chorea, a neurological disorder characterized by involuntary movements. When bedridden, he would read comics and Hollywood magazines, kindling his adoration of pop culture and icons. During these years, Warhol drew pictures inspired by his readings. His father recognized his talent and saved money for his son to attend Carnegie Mellon University where Warhol studied art.

After graduation, Warhol moved to New York City to pursue a career as a commercial artist. His first published work was an illustration for a story in a 1949 issue of Glamour magazine. Throughout the 1950s, he also worked as an illustrator for Tiffany & Co., Columbia Records, and Vogue.

In post-war, consumerist America, Warhol took note of the benefits of assembly lines devised for manufacturing purposes and employed this method of production in his studio. The Factory, suitably named for his art-making process, was Warhol’s famously silver painted and aluminum foil-covered studio. His studio became a hub for the New York art scene, where artists and celebrities would meet for parties and collaborations.

The early 1960s marked Warhol’s transition from hand-painted work to silkscreens. He created portraits of many famous people including Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Jackie Kennedy, Elizabeth Taylor, and many more. Later in his career, he was commissioned to create album cover designs and portraits of hundreds of socialites, musicians, and film stars. In 1962, he made his famous series Campbell’s Soup Cans.

Although most famously known for his contributions to the Pop Art movement, throughout his career Warhol experimented with other various mediums including film, music, production, television, fashion, and theater. The largest work of his career was the Time Capsules (1974), which consisted of filled and sealed cardboard boxes filled with his belongings including letters, photographs, records, clothing, food, medicine, toys, artwork, and other random items. Warhol was known for his habit of collecting and documenting as he kept everything and captured his daily life using his Polaroid camera.

Warhol also had a taste for publishing. In 1969, Warhol co-founded the film, fashion, and pop culture magazine Interview. He published his first book, Andy Warhol’s Index in 1967 and, in 1975, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again). His 1989 book, The Andy Warhol Diaries, was published posthumously and chronicles his life from 1976 to 1987.

Andy Warhol’s work has been featured in countless exhibitions, books, and documentary films. The Andy Warhol Museum, located in his hometown of Pittsburgh, holds a permanent collection of his art and archives.