ROBERT GRAHAM
Untitled, 2008 cast bronze on gold leaf brick base 9” x 5” x 5” edition of 1
Untitled, 2008 cast bronze on gold leaf brick base 9” x 5” x 5” edition of 1
Untitled, 2008 cast bronze on gold leaf brick base 9” x 5” x 5” edition of 1
Klara II, 2004 cast bronze 32” x 41” x 12” edition of 3
Wax Drawing (D19), 2008 wax and pigment on board 24” x 48”
Wax Drawing (D14), 2008 wax and pigment on board 24” x 48”
Wax Drawing (D11), 2008 wax and pigment on board 24” x 48”
Untitled, 2005 duraform polymer 38” x 28” x 18” edition of 1
Sasha, 1993 cast bronze on base 59” x 12” x 12”
Koreen, 1993 cast bronze on base 59” x 12” x 12”
“Robert Graham has unrelentingly pursued close observation and ‘ways of seeing’ for over forty years. The nude female model has been both object and participant in the manifestation of this gaze. Through drawings, photographs, videos, and, especially, sculptures, Graham has portrayed and interpreted the female figure since the beginning of his career. What makes Graham unique – in fact, radical – within contemporary art is his uncompromising persistence in this subject and line of inquiry, continuing a long art historical trajectory while constantly finding new tools of both conceptual and technological expression.” “Graham’s sculptural work began with small wax figures encased in Plexiglas environments suggestive of 1960s California beach culture. At the time, unschooled in figure drawing or human anatomy, Graham works from photographs and pop imagery culled from magazines and mass media. These voyeuristic habitats, with their implied situational narratives seemingly appropriated from soft porn advertising, were readily embraced by an art world hip to the stylized, erotic nudes of Tom Wesselman and Mel Ramos. However, Graham’s interest in the nude quickly progressed to a probing exploration in which the role of scale, movement, verisimilitude, and relation to the viewer became significant concerns. Using a self-constructed pinhole camera, the artist scaled himself to the space of the diminutive figure. He experimented with different modes of viewing, observing physicality, movement, and mood through the camera lens, the video recorded, and directly in quick drawn sketches and clay models. He fragmented and multiplied the figure – both in the studio and in the final sculptures – by introducing a mirror; which further manipulated the viewer’s self-conscious gaze and contingent relationship to the nude. Abruptly truncating his sculptures as if recovered from an archaeological past, Graham pushed the limits of representation to convey a convincing human presence. As he worked directly with live models through the 1970s, Graham’s ability to both observe and record anatomical detail and individualized form increased to the level of exceptional technical virtuosity. At the same time, his determined artistic investigation of the female figure, without irony and little subtext, made him a maverick within contemporary artistic practice.” Courtesy Peggy Fogelman, Robert Graham, Body of Work, 2007.
“Robert speaks distinctly and lucidly, often with thoughts that clearly come into being as he speaks them. His hands move into the air to make a point and he has a special and particular grace which is a counterpart to the entirely different but complementary grace of his statues on their rotating pedestals. Oftentimes Robert stops speaking, thinks, then speaks again and the same rhythmic fluidity and equipoise that is in his statues is in his thought. He is myriad-minded and as he talks we move from the frescoes of Orozco in Guadalajara, with their furious strokes of passion and revolution and community-centeredness, to the effect of Mexican muralists on Pollock and the abstract expressionists.” “There is comfort in a man who believes, with all his modernism and individuality, that he is making his effigies and statues for whoever, like himself, will enjoy them and will enjoy the uniqueness of his models as he has come to know them.” Courtesy: Michael McClure, “Place,” Oakland, 1994.
ROBERT GRAHAM BORN August 19, 1938 Mexico City, Mexico DIED December 27, 2008 Venice, California EDUCATION 1963-1964 San Francisco Art Institute 1961-1963 San Jose State College SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2008 Ace Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA 2007 Fisher Gallery, University of Southern California 2006 Imago Galleries, Palm Desert, CA Tremaine Gallery at the Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, CT 2005 Ace Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA Imago Galleries, Palm Desert, CA 2004 Riva Yares Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 2003 Imago Galleries, Palm Desert, CA 2001 Earl McGrath Gallery, New York City, NY 1999 Contemporary Art Institute, Sapporo, Japan City of Iwamizawa, Hokkaido, Japan Kemper Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO Frederick Spratt Gallery, San Jose, CA 1998 Larry Evans/James Willis Gallery, with Frederick Spratt Gallery, San Francisco, CA Riva Yares Gallery, Santa Fe, NM Peter Blake Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA Riva Yares Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ 1997 Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico City, Mexico Galeria OMR, Mexico City, Mexico 1996 Gagosian Gallery, New York City, New York Larry Evans/James Willis Gallery, with Frederick Spratt Gallery, San Francisco, CA Remba Gallery, West Hollywood, CA Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1995 Chac-Mool Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Mikimoto Gallery, Tokyo, Japan 1994 Frederick Spratt Gallery, San Jose, CA San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, CA Gagosian Gallery, New York City, NY 1993 Building Arts Gallery, Venice, CA FIAC’93, Galerie Neuendorf, Grand-Palais, Paris, France 1992 Robert Miller Gallery, New York City, NY 48 Market Street Gallery, Venice, CA 1991 John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco, CA 1990 Mixogra a Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Robert Miller Gallery, New York City, NY Galerie Neuendorf, Frankfurt, Germany Galerie Fahnenmann, Berlin, Germany Earl McGrath Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
48 Market Street Gallery, Venice, CA 1989 Robert Miller Gallery, New York City, NY 1988 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA 1985 48 Market Street Gallery, Fragments Exhibition, Venice, CA 1984 Gemini G.E.L., Los Angeles, CA ARCO Center for Visual Arts, Los Angeles, CA 1982 Norton Gallery and School of Art, West Palm Beach, FL Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX Joslyn Art Center, Omaha, NE Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IO San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA Robert Miller Gallery, New York City, NY 1981 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA Dorothy Rosenthal Gallery, Chicago, IL School of Visual Arts, New York City, NY Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN 1980 Dorothy Rosenthal Gallery, Chicago, IL 1979 Galeries Neuendorf, Hamburg, Germany Robert Miller Gallery, New York City, NY Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York City, NY 1978 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA Robert Miller Gallery, New York City, NY Dorothy Rosenthal Gallery, Chicago, IL 1977 Robert Miller Gallery, New York City, NY Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, CA John Stoller Gallery, Minneapolis, MN Dorothy Rosenthal Gallery, Chicago, IL 1976 Greenberg Gallery, St. Louis, MO Galerie Neuendorf, Hamburg/Cologne, Germany Gimpel Fils, London, England 1975 Dorothy Rosenthal Gallery, Chicago, IL Felicity Samuel Gallery, London, England Gimpel & Hanover Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland Gimpel & Hanover Galerie, Basel Art Fair Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1974 Felicity Samuel Gallery, London, England Galerie Zwirner, Cologne, Germany Galerie Neuendorf, Hamburg/Cologne, Germany Gimpel & Hanover Galerie, Zurich, Switzerland Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Texas Gallery, Houston, TX 1972 Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, TX Galerie Herbert Meyer-Ellinger, Frankfurt, Germany Courtney Sale Gallery, Dallas, TX 1971 Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany Sonnabend Gallery, New York City, NY 1970 Galerie Mollenho , Cologne, Germany Galerie Neuendorf, Hamburg/Cologne, Germany Galerie Rene Block, Berlin, Germany Whitechapel Gallery, London, England
1969 1968 1964
Kornblee Gallery, New York City, NY Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Galerie Neuendorf, Hamburg/Cologne, Germany Galerie Zwirner, Cologne, Germany Kornblee Gallery, New York City, NY 1967 Galerie elen, Essen, Germany Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1966 Nicholas Wilder Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Lanyon Gallery, Palo Alto, CA
CIVIC MONUMENTS 2002 Great Bronze Doors, the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, Los Angeles, CA 2001 “Prologue,” addition to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C. 1999 Charlie “Bird” Parker Memorial, Kansas City, MO 1997 Duke Ellington Monument, New York City, New York Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C. 1994 Plumed Serpent, City of San Jose, CA 1986 Joe Louis Memorial, Detroit, MI 1984 Olympic Gateway, Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, CA PUBLIC COMMISSIONS 2007 Basilica of Notre Dame University, Notre Dame, IN 2006 School of Architecture, University of Southern California, CA 2003 Rodeo Drive, City of Beverly Hills, Beverly Hills, CA 1991 First Interstate World Center, Los Angeles, CA 1987 United States Courthouse/Federal Building, San Jose, CA 1985 Kentucky Derby Festival, Louisville, KY 1984 72 Market St. Restaurant, Venice, CA 1983 Federal Reserve Bank, San Fracisco, CA City of Los Angeles, CA 1981 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA 1980 Michael’s Restaurant, Santa Monica, CA 1978 Wright-Runsted Buiding, Seattle, WA UCLA Murphy Sculpture Garden, Los Angeles, CA ARCHITECTURAL PROJECTS 1995 Design of UCLA Doumani Sculpture Garden, Venice, CA 1994 Santa Fe City Center Project, Mexico City, Mexico; co-designed with Jon Jerde 1979 Doumani House, Venice, CA SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Bank of America, San Francisco, CA Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, HI Dallas Museum of Fine Art, Dallas, TX
Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI Frederick Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles, CA Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO Kunstmuseum, Hamburg, Germany Kunstmuseum, Cologne, Germany Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA Ludwig Museum, Aachen, Germany Museum of Art, Rotterdam, Holland e Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX e Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY Museum of Modern Art, Paris, France National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. National Museum of Wales, Cardi , Wales Norton Simon Museum of Art, Pasadena, CA Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, CA Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, CA San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA Smith College, Northhampton, MA Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, NY COIN AND AWARD DESIGN 2006 “Spirit of California” Award 2003 American Jazz Museum Award, ongoing design Rodeo Drive Walk of Style Award “Lo Maximo” Award, Homeboy Industries 2001 Franklin Delano Roosevelt International Disability Award Carousel of Hope Award, ongoing design 1997 Los Angeles Latino International Fim Festival, ongoing design Latin Jazz Award 1994 California Governors’ Award for the Arts, ongoing design John Huston Award for the Artists’ Rights Foundation 1985 National Medal of Arts, presented by the President of the Unites States, ongoing design
Spirit of Liberty Award, presented by the People for the American Way 1984 Olympic Silver Dollar for the United States Mint ($4 million minted) PUBLIC ART DIRECTION 1987 Ronald Reagan Building, Los Angeles, California, with Beckett Development 1985 Mitsui Bank Tower, Home Savings Bank Tower, Los Angeles, CA, for A.C Martin Architects BOARD OF TRUSTEE POSITIONS Advisory Board, Homeboy Industries, Los Angeles, CA San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA Yo San University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Santa Monica, CA e Museum of Contemporary Art, Los \ Angeles, CA Otis College of Art and Design, Westchester, CA Hope of Los Angeles Award, Latino Heritage Month, City of Los Angeles, CA Estrellas de Nuestra Cultura Award, Mexican Cultural Institute, Los Angeles, CA Lifetime Achievement Award of the 24th Roses and Lemon Awards, Downtown Breakfast Club, Los Angeles, CA Commander of Merit of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Malta ACLU Freedom of Speech Award California Governors’ Award for the Arts
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