Joel Shapiro

Last updated
Joel Shapiro, Untitled, bronze, 1990, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Untitlrd bronze sculpture by Joel Shapiro, 1990, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.JPG
Joel Shapiro, Untitled, bronze, 1990, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Joel Elias Shapiro (born September 27, 1941 [1] New York City, New York) is an American sculptor renowned for his dynamic work composed of simple rectangular shapes. The artist is classified as a Minimalist as demonstrated in his works, which were mostly defined through the materials used, without allusions to subjects outside of the works. [2] He lives and works in New York City. He is married to the artist Ellen Phelan.

Contents

Early life and education

Joel Shapiro grew up in Sunnyside, Queens, New York. [3] He graduated from Bayside High School (Bayside, NY) in 1959, at which time the school’s yearbook awarded him the title of ManAbout Town. When he was twenty two he lived in India for two years while in the Peace Corps. [3] He received a B.A. in 1964 and an M.A. in 1969 from New York University.

Work and inspiration

While serving his Peace Corp time in India, Shapiro saw many Indian art works, and has said that "India gave me the sense of … the possibility of being an artist." In India "Art was pervasive and integral to the society", and he has said that "the struggle in my work to find a structure that reflects real psychological states may well use Indian sculpture as a model." [3] His early work, which also drew inspiration from Greek art, [4] is characterized by some by its small size, but Shapiro has discounted this perception, describing his early works as, "all about scale and the small size was an aspect of their scale". He described scale as "A very active thing that's changing and altering as time unfolds, consciously or unconsciously," and, "a relationship of size and an experience. You can have something small that has big scale." In these works he said that he was trying "to describe an emotional state, my own longing or desire". He also said that during this early period in his career he was interested in the strategies of artists Robert Morris, Richard Serra, Carl Andre, and Donald Judd. [3]

By the 1980s, Shapiro began to explore larger and life-size forms in pieces that were still reminiscent of Indian and Greek sculpture but also inspired by the early modernist works by Edgar Degas and Constantin Brâncusi. [4] The bulk of these pieces have been commissioned or acquired by museums and galleries. Later, Shapiro further expanded his repertoire by creating pieces that depicted the dynamism of human form. For instance, his subjects were portrayed in the act of dancing, crouching, and falling, among others that explored the themes of balance, cantilever, projection, and compression. [4] His later works can have the appearance of flying, being impossibly suspended in space, and/or defying gravity. He has said about this shift in his work that he "wanted to make work that stood on its own, and wasn't limited by architecture and by the ground and the wall and right angles." [3] These can be demonstrated in the case of the large-size outdoor art he made for the Hood Museum of Art. The bronze piece was an attenuated form that leans over a walkway and its near-falling form is viewed as an energizing element in the museum's courtyard. This sculpture, like all of Shapiro's mature works, are untitled. [5]

Shapiro is Jewish and Jewish traditions have influenced his art works, including his frequent use of the color blue. [6]

Works in collections

United States

California

  • Untitled, 1978, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla
  • Untitled, 1974, Gersh, Philip & Beatrice, Los Angeles
  • Untitled, 1988, Gersh, Philip & Beatrice, Los Angeles
  • Untitled, 1981, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
  • Untitled, 1979, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
  • Untitled, 1982, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
  • Untitled, 1975, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
  • Untitled, 1988, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco
  • Untitled, 1982-1985, J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

District of Columbia

  • Untitled , 1989, National Gallery of Art, Washington
  • Untitled, 1974, National Gallery of Art, Washington
  • Untitled, 1975, National Gallery of Art, Washington
  • Untitled, 1975, National Gallery of Art, Washington
  • Untitled, 1983, National Gallery of Art, Washington
  • Untitled, 1986, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington
  • Loss and Regeneration , 1993, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington
  • Blue, 2019, Video Wall Lawn of the REACH at the Kennedy Center, Washington

Florida

  • Untitled, 1996, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton
  • Untitled, 1988, Boca Raton Museum of Art, Boca Raton
  • Up/Over, 2007, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach

Illinois

  • Untitled, 1984, Elliott, Gerald S., Chicago
  • Untitled (Arching Figure), 1985, Elliott, Gerald S., Chicago
  • Untitled (for G.S.E.), 1987, Elliott, Gerald S., Chicago
  • Untitled, 1981, Governors State University, University Park

Indiana

  • Untitled, 1984, David Owsley Museum of Art, Indiana

Iowa

  • Untitled, 2003, Principal Riverwalk, Des Moines
  • Untitled, 1985, Pappajohn Sculpture Park, Des Moines

Maine

  • Untitled, 1984, Colby College, Museum of Art, Waterville

Maryland

  • Untitled, 1985, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore
  • Untitled, 1970, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore

Massachusetts

Michigan

  • Untitled, 1975, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit
  • Untitled, 1985, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit

Minnesota

  • Untitled, 1975, Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), Minneapolis

Missouri

  • Untitled, 1984, St. Louis Art Museum, St. Louis
  • Untitled, 1991, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City

Nebraska

  • Untitled, 1984, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Garden,

New York

  • Seven Elements, 2001–2003, Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany
  • Untitled, 1988, Museum of Modern Art, NYC
  • Untitled, 1988, Museum of Modern Art, NYC
  • Untitled (house on shelf), 1974, Museum of Modern Art, NYC
  • Untitled, 1994, Sony Plaza, NYC - Donated by Sony Corporation of America to Storm King Art Center on April 19, 2016
  • Untitled (House on Field), 1976, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
  • Untitled, 1978, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
  • Untitled, 1981, Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC
  • Untitled, 2000, Rockefeller University, New York
  • Untitled, 2004–2005, Albany Academy for Girls, Albany, NY

North Carolina

  • Untitled, 1990, North Carolina Museum of Art
  • Untitled, 1995, Davidson College, Van Every/ Smith Galleries

Ohio

  • Untitled, University of Cincinnati Galleries, Ohio
  • Untitled, 1977, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio
  • Untitled, 1989, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio

Pennsylvania

  • Untitled maquette, 1984, CIGNA Museum and Art Collection, Philadelphia
  • Untitled, 1984, CIGNA Museum and Art Collection, Philadelphia

Texas

  • Untitled, 1975, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas
  • Untitled, 1975, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas [7]
  • Untitled, 1984, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas [8]
  • Untitled, 1985–87, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas [9]
  • Untitled, 1986, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas [10]
  • Untitled, 1986, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas [11]
  • Untitled, 1996–99, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas [12]
  • Untitled, 1977, Fort Worth Art Museum, Fort Worth
  • Untitled, 1977, Fort Worth Art Museum, Fort Worth
  • Untitled , 1990, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
  • Untitled, 2000, McNay Art Museum, San Antonio
  • "Elements", 2004-2005, Northpark Center, Dallas, Texas
  • Untitled, 2011, Rice University Art Gallery, Houston
  • Untitled, 2019, UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas

Washington

Wisconsin

  • Untitled, 1987, Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

International collections

Australia

Canada

Denmark

Note: Joel Shapiro's sculpture name is unknown in the Denmark section, so the name of the sculpture isn't there.

Germany

Israel

Italy

Netherlands

Sweden

United Kingdom

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Judd</span> American artist (1928–1994)

Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism. In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy. He is generally considered the leading international exponent of "minimalism", and its most important theoretician through such writings as "Specific Objects" (1964). Judd voiced his unorthodox perception of minimalism in Arts Yearbook 8, where he says, "The new three dimensional work doesn't constitute a movement, school, or style. The common aspects are too general and too little common to define a movement. The differences are greater than the similarities."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nasher Sculpture Center</span> Museum in Dallas, USA

Opened in 2003, the Nasher Sculpture Center is a museum in Dallas, Texas, that houses the Patsy and Raymond Nasher collection of modern and contemporary sculpture. It is located on a 2.4-acre (9,700 m2) site adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art in the Dallas Arts District.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Menashe Kadishman</span> Israeli sculptor and painter

Menashe Kadishman was an Israeli sculptor and painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Borofsky</span> American sculptor and printmaker

Jonathan Borofsky is an American sculptor and printmaker who lives and works in Ogunquit, Maine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Gober</span> American sculptor

Robert Gober is an American sculptor. His work is often related to domestic and familiar objects such as sinks, doors, and legs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ronnie Landfield</span> American painter

Ronnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.

Rachel Harrison is an American visual artist known for her sculpture, photography, and drawing. Her work often combines handmade forms with found objects or photographs, bringing art history, politics, and pop culture into dialogue with one another. She has been included in numerous exhibitions in Europe and the US, including the Venice Biennale, the Whitney Biennial and the Tate Triennial (2009). Her work is in the collections of major museums such as The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; and Tate Modern, London; among others. She lives and works in New York.

Lawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work.

Erick Lawrence Swenson is an American figurative sculptor living and working in Dallas, Texas.

Allan D'Arcangelo was an American artist and printmaker, best known for his paintings of highways and road signs that border on pop art and minimalism, precisionism and hard-edge painting, and also surrealism. His subject matter is distinctly American and evokes, at times, a cautious outlook on the future of this country.

Melvin "Mel" Edwards is an American artist, teacher, and abstract steel-metal sculptor. Additionally he has worked in drawing and printmaking. His artwork has political content often referencing African-American history, as well as the exploration of themes within slavery. Visually his works are characterized by the use of straight-edged triangular and rectilinear forms in metal. He lives between Upstate New York and in Plainfield, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lyman Kipp</span> American sculptor and painter (1929–2014)

Lyman Emmet Kipp, Jr. was a sculptor and painter who created pieces that are composed of strong vertical and horizontal objects and were often painted in bold primary colors recalling arrangements by De Stijl Constructivists. Kipp is an important figure in the development of the Primary Structure style which came to prominence in the mid-1960s.

David Hammons is an American artist, best known for his works in and around New York City and Los Angeles during the 1970s and 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Price</span> American artist (1935–2021)

Kenneth Price was an American artist who predominantly created ceramic sculpture. He studied at the Chouinard Art Institute and Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, before receiving his BFA degree from the University of Southern California in 1956. He continued his studies at Chouinard Art Institute in 1957 and received an MFA degree from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1959. Kenneth Price studied ceramics with Peter Voulkos at Otis and was awarded a Tamarind Fellowship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Shelton (sculptor)</span> American sculptor (born 1951)

Peter Shelton is a contemporary American sculptor born in 1951 in Troy, Ohio.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Dailey (glass artist)</span> American artist (born 1947)

Dan Owen Dailey is an American artist and educator, known for his sculpture. With the support of a team of artists and crafts people, he creates sculptures and functional objects in glass and metal. He has taught at many glass programs and is professor emeritus at the Massachusetts College of Art, where he founded the glass program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Burton</span> American sculptor (1939–1989)

Scott Burton was an American sculptor and performance artist best known for his large-scale furniture sculptures in granite and bronze.

Liz Larner is an American installation artist and sculptor living and working in Los Angeles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elyn Zimmerman</span> American sculptor

Elyn Zimmerman is an American sculptor known for her emphasis on large scale, site specific projects and environmental art. Along with these works, Zimmerman has exhibited drawings and photographs since graduating with an MFA in painting and photography at University of California, Los Angeles in 1972. Her teachers included Robert Heineken, Robert Irwin, and Richard Diebenkorn.

John Newman is an American sculptor. He was born in Flushing, Queens in 1952. He received his B.A. from Oberlin College (1973). He attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 1972 and received his M.F.A. in 1975 from the Yale School of Art. He was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT from 1975 to 1978. He is based in New York City.

References

  1. Bui, Phong (November 2007). "Joel Shapiro with Phong Bui". The Brooklyn Rail.
  2. Sale, Teel; Betti, Claudia (2008). Drawing: A Contemporary Approach. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. p. 25. ISBN   9780495094913.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 Klein, Michele Gerber http://bombsite.com/issues/109/articles/3332 Archived 2011-11-12 at the Wayback Machine BOMB Magazine Fall 2009, Retrieved July 25, 2011
  4. 1 2 3 Hood Museum of Art (2009). Modern and Contemporary Art at Dartmouth: Highlights from the Hood Museum of Art. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New england. p. 117. ISBN   9781584657866.
  5. Kostelanetz, Richard (2001). A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes. New York: Routledge. p. 565. ISBN   0415937647.
  6. "Artist Joel Shapiro Discusses the Art in Mishkan HaNefesh". Central Conference of American Rabbis. 22 June 2015. Retrieved 2023-06-04.
  7. "Joel Shapiro : Untitled".
  8. "Joel Shapiro : Untitled".
  9. "Joel Shapiro : Untitled".
  10. "Joel Shapiro : Untitled".
  11. "Joel Shapiro : Untitled".
  12. "Joel Shapiro : Untitled".

Untitled, Joel Shapiro, Getty Museum Website, Untitled, Joel Shapiro, Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation

Further reading