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Ad Code: 3
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from Auction House Records.
Burnished Aluminum Drawing, T5
Artwork images are copyright of the artist or assignee
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Born in Dodge City, Kansas, Billy Al Bengston became a part of the
1960s California Pop-Art movement and pioneered the use of industrial
and spray paint techniques in his fine art painting. He combined
this method with symmetrical formal images in centralized
composition. He became known for work that created stunning,
dazzling optical effects.
Bengston moved to California in 1948
with his family and associated with sculptor Kenneth Price, painter
Richard Diebenkorn, and ceramist Peter Voulkos. He attended
several art schools in northern and southern California for relatively
brief periods of time. This was a period in California artistic
history where the artists were forging their own path, seemingly
oblivious to any thing going on in New York. Few museums welcomed
their work, and so they banded together and did their own exhibitions.
Japanese
artist Sabro Hasegawa taught Bengston an intuitive approach to
painting; Diebenkorn taught him how to work with paint, and Peter
Voulkos excited him with the energy of ceramics. Bengston later
rejected ceramics in 1957 because of what he perceived as lack of
money-making potential.
He spent six months in Europe in 1958
and 1959 and was strongly influenced by several artists exhibited there
at the time including Jacopo Tintoretto's composition from the
Renaissance era and the centralized images and flat surfaces of Jasper
Johns.
Flying home from Europe, he saw in a magazine a chevron
or sargeant-stripe motif, which he incorporated from 1960 into his
paintings as a personal insignia instead of a signature.
Previously he had used hearts.
He had his first one-man show at
age 24 at the Ferus Gallery, a mecca for young artists in Los Angeles
and won instant acclaim, and he first showed his chevron paintings in
1962 at the Martha Jackson Gallery in New York. He is a
gregarious, witty man who loved his life style as an artist and
combined the hard work of that profession with athletics, travel,
motorcycle riding and scuba diving.
He was also an early
environmentalist with a particular interest in the ocean and sunlight,
images that he incorporated into many of his paintings. His
titles often reflected his wit and sense of whimsy. He
arbitrarily assigned titles after completing the work, such as his Dodge City, in the Phoenix Art Museum collection, which is one of his chevron paintings and bears little relationship to his birthplace.
Source:
Docent Files, The Phoenix Art Museum
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  BENGSTON, BILLY AL
Billy Al Bengston was born on June 7, 1934 in Dodge City, Kansas. He studied at Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles State College, California College of Arts and Crafts and Los Angeles County Art Institute. He taught at Chouinard Art Institute 1961, University of California at Los Angeles in 1962-63, University of Oklahoma 1967, University of Colorado 1967. He won an award from National Council of Arts 1967 and a Tamarind Fellowship. In 1969 he had a retrospective circulating from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Many of his large-scaled works depict lush foliage, blue lagoons, brilliant sunsets and yellow moonrises, etc.; the paintings are also unabashadly funny, visual puns abound. A confirmed modernist and an admirer of Matisse, Bengston believes his work is predominantly about line and color. He has worked in many exotic places, in California, Mexico and Hawaii. He seems to be able to do it all: paint full-time, maintain a strenuous physical pace, and find constant new outlets for his whimsical, forthright ideas.
Sources include:
Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Art, edited by Harold Osborne
Fredericka Hunter in Architectural Digest
Contemporary Artists, 2nd Edition
Compiled and written by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California.
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This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Family moved to California in 1948. Studied at Los Angeles City College, Los Angeles State College, California College of Arts and Crafts and Los Angeles County Art Institute. He spent six months in Europe in 1958-59. He taught at Chouinard Art Institute in 1961, at the University of California at Los Angeles from 1962-63, at the University of Oklahoma in 1967, and at the University of Colorado in 1969. Bengston was part of the 1960s California Pop-Art movement, and pioneered the use of industrial and spray paint techniques in his fine art painting, creating dazzling optical effects. In 1996, he joined with Westfall Interior Systems to supply art as part of a total interior package.
Exhibitions: Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963; Martha Jackson Gallery, New York, 1962; Oakland Art Museum, 1963; Sao Paulo Bienal, 1965; Seattle Art Museum, 1966; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1968; Pasadena Art Museum, 1969; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, 1973, 1988; Corcoran Gallery of Art, 1981; and more.
Awards: National Council of Arts, 1967; Tamarind Fellowship, 1968, 1982, 1987; Guggenheim Fellowship, 1975.
Collections: Phoenix Art Museum; Whitney Museum of American Art; Guggenheim Museum; Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Art Gallery of Ontario; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and more. | Source:
SOURCES:
Susan Craig, "Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (active before 1945)"
AskART, www.askart.com, accessed Oct. 11, 2007; Who’s Who in American Art. New York: American Federation of Arts, 1936-1970, 1976; Art Inventories Cat; Plagens, Peter. Sunshine Muse: Contemporary Art on the West Coast. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1974. | | This and over 1,750 other biographies can be found in Biographical Dictionary of Kansas Artists (active before 1945) compiled by Susan V. Craig, Art & Architecture Librarian at University of Kansas. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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