ART AFICIONADO: Richard Artschwager

Sunday, December 26, 2021

Richard Artschwager

Art Appreciation

Born in Washington, D.C. on December 26, 1923, Richard Artschwager was an American painter, illustrator, and sculptor.

Artschwager served in the United States Army during World War II. Although wounded in combat, he was assigned to move high-level prisoners, including German General Nikolaus Von Falkenhorst.

Artschwager studied chemistry and mathematics at Cornell University. In 1944, he enlisted in the United States Army. He then was assigned to an intelligence posting in Vienna.

In 1947, Artschwager returned to the United States, and finished college. Although he received a Bachelor of Arts in physics, Artschwager and his wife Elfriede Wejmelka moved to New York City to work as a baby photographer.

A couple of years later, Artschwager studied under Amédée Ozenfant, a purist painter, in Paris. However, he abandoned art soon after and resorted to working various jobs.

In 1953, Artschwager began selling furniture. He then began designing and manufacturing simple and modern furniture.

He was commissioned by the Catholic Church in 1960 to build portable altars for ships. In a time of abstract expressionism, he was inspired to explore incorporating craftsmanship into art working to produce small wall objects made of wood and laminated composite material known as Formica. His breakthrough piece was a three-dimensional wall piece made of Formica titled Handle.

Although he was best known for his furniture, Artschwager was also a painter. Many of his figurative paintings were from photographs. He also experimented with perspective creating the illusion of space in many of his paintings.

In 1968, he incorporated what he called blps, space punctuation, in his pieces. A dispersed installation called 100 Locations, had blps in 100 different in Manhattan's Whitney Museum, later that year.

In the 70s, his work was more into decorative design and bourgeois interiors that relied on light and its ability to guide the eye.

In the 80s and 90s, he continued to work on furniture and incorporating painted wood, Celotex, and Formica. In the 90s, Artschwager made an extensive series of sculptures in the form of shipping crates.

His final gallery exhibition featured five laminate sculptures of upright and grand pianos at the Gagosian Gallery in Rome in 2012.

He passed away at the age of 89 on February 9, 2013.