This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Known for his Pop-Art nude figures--the Great American Nude Series-- as
well as collages, often with food themes, Tom Wesselmann is a
Cincinnati born artist who studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati and
at Cooper Union in New York City in the late 1950s.
When he was
a student at Cooper Union, he was much influenced by Abstract
Expressionism, especially Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock.
However, he turned away from that style because he determined these
artists had become so introspective that there was little room for
creative exploration by others.
His reaction took him to Pop
Art, the other extreme of action painting to a tightly controlled style
and subject matter that was mundane--the antithesis of psychological
complexities. Joining a rebellion against the New York School, that
which had become the establishment, he, like Andy Warhol and Wayne
Thiebaud, asserted that everyday objects had significance unto
themselves and that they were worthy of depiction because of a common
understanding about what they were.
Of this reaction, Norman
Geske of Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery wrote: "The swing of the pendulum
was complete, from the esoteric to the commonplace, from passionate
individualism to the popular language of the marketplace. The new point
of view was not merely popular, it was 'pop,' assertive, declamatory,
defiant, achieving a stylistic identity in the soup cans of Andy
Warhol, the comic strips of Roy Lichtenstein, the billboards of James
Rosenquist, and the domestic icons of Tom Wesselmann."
In 1959,
Wesselmann began his collages which showed influence of modernist
artists ranging from Willem de Kooning and Henri Matisse. These
collages were usually interior scenes with nude figures, a subject he
did so repeatedly that it seemed an obsession. During the mid-1960s, he
focused solely on female nudes, presenting them as sex objects with
emphasis on breasts, mouth, and genitalia.
Sources include:
Dictionary of American Artists by Matthew Baigell and
The American Painting Collection of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery by Norman Geske and Karen Janovy.
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Biography from Rogallery.com:
|  Tom Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati, studied at Hiram College and then at the University of Cincinnati, where he earned a degree in psychology in 1956. After two years in the army, he attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati and then went to New York to study at the Cooper Union Art School. Although his earliest works leaned toward abstract expressionism his style underwent a series of dramatic changes and eventually led to his becoming an important exponent of pop art.
In 1961, Wesselmann had his first one-man show in New York and began his most famous series, -Great American Nudes. Since then he has had frequent exhibits in prominent American and European galleries. His work has been included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Walker Art Institute, Minneapolis, to name just three of a long, impressive list.
One year after 1961, he participated in the group exhibition 'New Realists' at the Sidney Janis Gallery, his international career with numerous exhibitions started off. The same year his first assemblages with the title 'Still Life' came into existence. In 1963 Wesselmann married his girl-friend and fellow student Claire Selley, who also was his most important model. He began a series of 'Bathtub Collages'. In 1966 the first of many one-man shows took place at the Janis Gallery. In 1964 Tom Wesselmann began with further series, e.g. 'Bedroom Paintings', 'Seascapes' and 'Smokers', which he continued until the early 1980s. In 1980 he published a treatise about his artistic development under the pseudonym Slim Stealingworth. In 1983 first 'Metal Works' were produced, which were based on the artist's drawings and sketches and which are still in the centre of the artist's interest. In 1994 a comprehensive retrospective took place at the Kunsthalle in Tübingen. Wesselmann died in New York on 17 December 2004. His choice of trivial motifs, thier monumentalisation, reduction to stereotypes, sexual embelematic as well as the use of bright colours made Wesselmann a co-founder of the American Pop-Art during the 1960s. |
Biography from Fineartgasm.com:
| Tom Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati in 1931, and studied art first in Cincinnati, then in New York at the Cooper Union. His early paintings were evocative of Abstract Expressionism, influenced by Willem de Kooning. One of the first Pop artists, along with Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg, Wesselmann started experiments in 1959 with small, abstract collages. Then, in 1960, he adopted advertising images to make bold amusing still lifes and interiors, collages and assemblages using commonplace household items, and often, a highly stylized female nude.
Wesselmann began The Great American Nude Series in 1961, a series of large and small works distinguished by number only. Some of the works include real rather than depicted objects, household objects such as a bathtub, radiator, and toaster. He has continued to feature the female nude in every major series of paintings and sculpture throughout his career. |
Biography from Artbrokering.com:
| Born
in 1931, Tom Wesselmann was formally trained in New York and had his
first one-man exhibition in 1961. A significant contributor to the Pop
Art movement of the sixties, Wesselmann's large scale collages and
paintings of nudes, landscapes and still-lifes captured the attention
of collectors and critics almost immediately. He has pioneered a number
of art forms now strongly associated with him, namely his 'drop outs'
where negative shapes become positive shapes and his 'cutouts' which
utilize laser cut metal to create extraordinary three-dimensional
drawings. He too, has been a remarkable printmaker having created
large, spectacular silkscreens and lithographs.
The color and
impact of his work has earned him a respected position in Contemporary
art and his works can be found in important collections around the
world. |
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Tom Wesselmann is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Painters of Nudes
Modernism
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