Nancy Graves
Nancy Graves ( born December 23, 1939 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, † October 21, 1995 in New York ) was an American sculptor, painter and filmmaker who was known for her work with natural phenomena like camels or moon cards. It is considered a representative of the trace evidence ( Art).
Life and work
My interest in art, nature and anthropology was sponsored by her father, who was the artistic director of a museum. After she began at Vassar College to study English literature, she laid at Yale University from 1964, the bachelor and master degrees. At Yale, she met Chuck Close and Richard Serra know. She received a Fulbright Scholarship to study for a year painting in Paris. There she married in the summer of 1965, their fellow students Richard Serra. From Paris In the year 1966 both moved for a year to Florence, where Graves ' first life-size sculptures of camels originated. Upon her return to the United States she rented a studio in New York. Arose along the camel sculptures were exhibited, among other things 1969 the Whitney Museum of American Art. Graves is the first artist under the age of 35, which the Whitney Museum dedicated a solo exhibition. The sculptures show three individual camels, each made of different materials like wax, fiberglass, burlap and animal skin. Each camel is also painted with acrylic and oil paint to make it appear realistic. The Whitney exhibition made Graves abruptly known as one of the protagonists of hyperrealism. The camels are now in the National Gallery of Canada, two later " siblings " are located at the Ludwig Forum for International Art in Aachen. Other sculptures depict simulated bones of prehistoric animals.
Parallel to the sculptures created drawings, paintings, films and collages, some that have the appearance of scientific research materials, but at the same time are autonomous works of art.
From 1970 paintings and drawings instead of sculptures produced more and more. So put Graves, comparable to the Pop Art, corpus of illustrations from textbooks in painting around. Motives were initially Animals, motion studies by Muybridge or masks of indigenous peoples. The case developed Punktmaltechnik Graves sat a little later to paint paintings of the lunar and Martian surface that were based on maps and photo material from NASA. Graves ' focus is always also extended to the technical requirements of the respective templates. So they took about faults and image defects in their paintings, which were created from space to earth due to the complicated transfer processes of NASA photos. Each subject group was a profound employment advance with the relevant scientific source material. Graves ' personal reference library listed on after her death, over 2,400 titles of various areas of science.
Nancy Graves was appointed in 1972 to participate in Documenta 5 in Kassel in the Department of Individual mythologies and to documenta 6 in 1977 as a participating artist.
From the late 1970s a new turn to the sculpture took place. It emerged post- modern bronze sculptures and other materials with which the artist on the U.S. art market was a great success. Their final years were determined by the experimental use of ever new plant materials such as resin and acrylic glass.
1985 Nancy Graves designed costumes and sets for the dance piece " lateral pass " the choreographer Trisha Brown, with the Graves was also a personal friend.
Works
- Goulimine ( movie, 1970)
- Izy Boukir ( movie, 1971)
- VI Maskeyne Since region of the Moon (lithograph, 1972)
- Fragment ( painting, 1977)
- About Wheel ( Plastic, 1985)
- Hindsight ( Plastic, 1986)
- Immovable Iconography ( Plastic, 1990)
Awards
- Skowhegan Medal for Drawing / Graphics ( 1980)
- New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award ( 1986)
- Honorary Degree, Skidmore College ( 1989)