Biography from The Columbus Museum-Georgia:
| Deep Southern roots define and inspire the artwork of William
Christenberry. His childhood in Alabama profoundly influences his
creation of contemporary painting, sculpture, printmaking and
photography.
Christenberry was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama but it is Hale County,
Alabama. homeland to many generations in his family, to which he
returns every year like a prodigal son. His first forays into art
occurred with the receipt of a Brownie camera at the age of nine.
He began photographing the Alabama landscape as a child and he has
never ceased.
He attended the University of Alabama for undergraduate and graduate
degrees in art, with a focus on painting. Developing his own
style in the age of Abstract Expressionism, Christenberry turned to the
familiar landscape for inspiration. The highly regarded 1941
book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, with text by James Agee and
photographs by Walker Evans equally inspired him. Christenberry
began his artistic explorations of his childhood memories of his
Southern experiences in a variety of media. The resulting works
often reflect upon the vernacular architecture and the long-planted red
clay farmland, which are often depicted in states of disrepair or
dilapidation due to the natural aging process. (1)
He taught briefly at Memphis State University before accepting a
faculty position at the Corcoran School of Art where he has been
influencing students since 1968.
As noted, Christenberry’s background is in painting, and in his
abstraction paintings of the 1960s, walls repeatedly appear in his
imagery. He transformed these paintings in three-dimensions by
building collages of “found” objects from the South, such as pieces of
wood, tin and discarded signs. His first wall construction was
created for the commission he received in 1978 from the
Arts-in-Architecture Program of the United States General Services
Administration for a new federal building in Jackson, Mississippi.
With the success of this construction, he has continued to create
others, often revealing his fascination and love for found
objects. Each time he returns for visits to Alabama he
photographs the architectural structures as they age (and the landscape
changes) and he also gathers outdoor advertising signs. (2) He believes
the signs contain an “intrinsic beauty.” They are true treasures to
him, and a vanishing aspect of outdoor advertising. Many of the
signs remain wholly in tact in his constructions, unless he has
duplicates or they contain rust, in which case he is not bothered by
cutting them apart.
“His continuous interest in vernacular culture stems from his own
fascination with what he calls the ‘aesthetics of aging’ that he has
been witnessing in the rural South and to which his work pays
homage. The declining structure and weathered signage he
incorporates in his work are not just cultural properties to be
consumed. It is their passage through time and their related
histories with the people and landscape that surround them that
resonate here.” (3)
Sources include:
1. An entire series of paintings were made on the subject of the tenant
farmers’ shacks that are very much rooted in the abstract expressionist
teachings of his time but also fully charged with his emotional
response to the Southern landscape.
2. See Mitchell Kahan, William Christenberry’s Southern Wall, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, May, 1989 for a more detailed discussion of Christenberry’s use of found signage.
3. Milena Kalinovska, William Christenberry: Changing Landscape—The Source Revisited (Washington, DC: The Kreeger Museum, 2001),
Submitted by the staff, Columbus Museum-Georgia |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|