Robert Arneson

Robert Arneson

"California Artist," by Robert Arneson, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Born (1930-09-04)September 4, 1930
Benicia, California
Died November 2, 1992(1992-11-02) (aged 62)
Nationality American
Known for Sculpture
Movement Funk movement

Robert Carston Arneson (September 4, 1930 – November 2, 1992) was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at UC Davis for nearly three decades.[1]

Career

Arneson was born in Benicia, California. He graduated from Benicia High School and spent much of his early life as a cartoonist for a local paper. Arneson studied at California College of the Arts in Oakland, California for his BA and went on to receive an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California in 1958.

Starting in the 1960s, Arneson and several other California artists began to abandon the traditional manufacture of functional items in favor of using everyday objects to make confrontational statements. The new movement was dubbed Funk Art, and Arneson is considered the father of the ceramic Funk movement.[2]

Arneson used common objects in his work, which included both ceramic sculptures and drawings. He appeared in many of his own pieces — as a chef, a man picking his nose, a jean-jacketed hipster in sunglasses.

Even his Eggheads bear a self-resemblance. Among the last works Arneson completed before his death, the last of the Eggheads were installed on campus at UC Davis in 1994. The controversial pieces[2] continue to serve as a source of interest and discussion on the campus, even inspiring a campus blog by the same name.

One of Arneson's most famous and controversial works is a bust of George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco who was assassinated in 1978. Inscribed on the pedestal of the bust are words representing events in Moscone's life, including his assassination: the words "Bang Bang Bang Bang" and "Harvey Milk Too!" are visible in on the front of the pedestal.

Teaching career

Arneson's teaching career began soon after receiving his MFA degree from California College of Arts, with a stint at Santa Rosa Junior College, in Santa Rosa, CA (1958–59). This was followed by a position at Fremont High School (1959–60) in Oakland, CA, before advancing to teach design and crafts at Mills College, also located in Oakland (1960–62).[3]

Arneson's next appointment (in 1962) was at UC Davis, where his gifts were recognized by Richard L. Nelson, who had founded the Art Department. It was during this period of the early 60s that Nelson was assembling a faculty that would come to be celebrated as one of the most prestigious in the nation. In addition to Arneson, Nelson had also selected Manuel Neri, Wayne Thiebaud and William T. Wiley, each of whom would go on to achieve international recognition.

Initially hired to teach design classes (in the College of Agriculture),[3] it was Arneson who established the ceramic sculpture program for the Art Department. It was in many ways a bold and radical move, in that ceramics were not yet recognized as a medium appropriate for fine art at that time.[4]

Since its founding, the campus ceramics studio has been housed in a corrugated metal building known as TB-9,[5] and it was here that Arneson held court for nearly three decades until his retirement in the summer of 1991.[6]

Death

Robert C. Arneson Park in Benicia

Arneson died on November 2, 1992, after a long battle with liver cancer. His home town of Benicia, California established a park in his memory, along the Carquinez Strait.

In collections around the world

Arneson's fame is far-reaching, and his works can be found in public and private collections around the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in (Richmond, Virginia), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, D.C.), di Rosa (Napa, CA), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Kyoto, Japan), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Racine Art Museum (Racine, WI), the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York City), the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the U.S. Embassy in Yeravan, Armenia. His creations are also at the Lowe Art Museum in Coral Gables, Florida.

The Nelson Gallery at UC Davis, where Arneson was a faculty member, owns 70 of the artist's works, including The Palace at 10am, which is currently on display in the gallery. The 70-square-foot (6.5 m2) earthenware sculpture, a depiction of his former Davis residence, is considered among his most famous sculptures. Several of his etchings and lithographs also are on display in the library.[7]

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ California Death Records (The California Department of Health Services)
  2. 1 2 Levin, Elaine (1988). The History of American Ceramics: From Pipkins and Bean Pots to Contemporary Forms, 1607 to the present. Ny, Ny: Harry N. Abrams. pp. 227–230. ISBN 0-8109-1172-8.
  3. 1 2 Benezra, Neal (1986). Robert Arneson. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-96348-4.
  4. ↑ Biography
  5. ↑ TB-9
  6. ↑ Robert C. Arneson Is Dead at 62; Sculptor of Whimsical Portraits
  7. ↑ A tribute to Robert Carston Arneson
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