Biography from AskART:
| Born in Benicia, California, Robert Arneson almost singlehandedly
transformed ceramics into a major contemporary medium. In the
early 1960s, he became a member of the Funk Art movement, a California
style of Pop-Art focusing on absurd images of everyday objects.
In the 1970s, he began using humorous portraits as subjects, and his
memorial portrait of San Francisco's assassinated Mayor George Moscone
was very controversial because it included references to the assassin.
As
a young man, he was a high school art teacher, who was assigned the
teaching of pottery making and, becoming intrigued by its
possibilities, he stayed just a step ahead of his students.
Within a few years, he realized that clay was his medium, but he did
not view it in the conventional way of making pots. He wanted to
explore the organic and functional qualities of the material itself,
and in this approach, was influenced by Peter Voulkos.
He gave
his pieces ironic titles and incorporated graffiti, giving him an
opportunity to play whimsical games with the work. In the 1970s,
he began using humorous portraits as subject matter, sculpting his
friends, heroes, and himself--all with ironic comments on the human
condition. His works also became increasingly larger, making them
a combination of sculpture and ceramics, and with his introduction of
colored glazes, he was part of a generation that integrated painting
and sculpture.
For many years, Arneson taught at the
University of California-Davis, where he influenced many young
artists. He died in 1992 from a long battle with cancer that had
begun in 1975. This ill health darkened the tone of his clay works, and
many of them took on issues such as nuclear war, assassins, and
society's victims.
Source:
Thomas Albright, Art in the San Francisco Bay Area
Docent Files, Phoenix Art Museum |
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Robert Arneson is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Sculptors
California Painters
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