TOM WESSELMANN – COLLAGES 1959-1964
2016-02-29Since the mid-1960s, Wesselmann’s oeuvre has been synonymous with the bold, graphic, and large-scale imagery of Pop Art. On view at the gallery, his intimate, handwrought collages of the late 1950s and early 1960s reveal the germination of his iconic style, and attest to his lifelong interest in depicting still lifes, interiors, landscapes, and female nudes.
Wesselmann first explored the medium of collage in 1959, during his final year as an art student at The Cooper Union School of Art, New York, and it remained central to his practice throughout the early 1960s. Part of a generation of artists that reacted against the dominant action-oriented, gestural style of Abstract Expressionism, Wesselmann took interest in quotidian, figurative, and popular subject matter, as well as the representational and graphic qualities afforded by collage. Employing found materials culled from urban detritus and popular media such as postcards, wallpaper, stickers, and fabric, Wesselmann executed several discrete but related series of collages that variously depict figures (both anonymous and known), interiors, and still lifes. Formally, the works relate to early modernist collage and assemblage techniques and practices and, in their subject matter, make numerous art historical references to the works of Henri Matisse, Edgar Degas, Wassily Kandinsky, and Hans Memling, among other artists. In his later collages, representations of contemporary life and consumer goods become more prominent, evolving into the large-scale Pop Art paintings for which Wesselmann became recognized.
Opposite – Still Life #29, 1963
Exhibition runs through till March 24th, 2016
David Zwirner
24 Grafton Street
W1S 4EZ London
England
