William Tunberg | |
|---|---|
 William Tunberg with a marquetry sculpture | |
| Born | August 15, 1936 Los Angeles |
| Education | University of Southern California, 1963, BA Architecture University of Southern California, 1965, MFA Sculpture |
| Occupation | Fine Artist |
| Known for | Marquetry, sculpture, drawing, assemblage |
William Tunberg (born August 15, 1936, in Los Angeles, California) is an American artist specializing in marquetry, sculpture, drawing and assemblage (art). He lives and works in Venice, California.
Tunberg was born in Los Angeles on August 15, 1936, to a family of writers. His father, also named William, was a movie, radio, television and short story writer, writing such films and television series as Old Yeller , Savage Sam , Garden of Evil , War Paint , Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea , The Wild Wild West , and The Monroes . [1] [2] [3] Tunberg's uncle, Karl Tunberg, was a prolific screenplay writer, his most notable work being Ben-Hur . [4]
Tunberg obtained college scholarships and fellowships from the University of Idaho, University of the South (Sewanee), and University of Southern California (USC), where he received his Bachelor of Arts in architecture in 1963 and his Master of Fine Arts in sculpture in 1965. In 1964, Tunberg won the USC Stanley Jameson Award for most promising artist. In 1965, Tunberg won the First Award, Graphics, Professional for his "Wintergarden IX" drawing in the All California Art in Cross-Section Exhibit, juried by George D. Culler, Director of the San Francisco Museum of Art, and Kenneth Donahue, deputy director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. [5]
After graduating from USC in 1965, Tunberg established his studio in Venice, California.
During the 1960s, Tunberg focused on drawing and assemblage. Influenced by Cliff Westerman, Joseph Cornell and Ed Kienholz, Tunberg saw assemblage as the natural three-dimensional extension of surrealism. Using wood, metals, fiberglass, cast plaster, carvings of body parts and found objects, Tunberg encased his narratives in acrylic boxes. Tunberg's assemblage Neoclassical Drawing Trap was selected for inclusion in the Annual of American Sculpture by the Whitney Museum and featured in Time [6] and Esquire . [7]
In 1977, Tunberg was a recipient of the California Arts Commission Award, "Eyes and Ears Foundation Grant", to design and produce art to be exhibited on a 48-by-16-foot (14.6 m × 4.9 m) billboard. Tunberg's Pat Tap was exhibited on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, California [8] [9] and referred to in the book Megamurals & Supergraphics: Big Art. [10] During the 1970s, Tunberg's assemblages were encased in boxes painted in high gloss metal-flake, to invite the viewer into the inner workings and tough narratives of his artwork.
During the 1980s, Tunberg began creating furniture and doors. His furniture is made of exotic hardwoods and inlays and his doors are covered in marquetry cut from wood veneer. In 1987, the 72 Market Street Oyster Bar and Grill in Venice commissioned Tunberg to create an inlaid sculptural railing that spanned the entire interior of the restaurant. [11] In 1989, the Maple Drive Restaurant in Beverly Hills commissioned Tunberg to create 52 one-of-a-kind inlaid sculptural tables and booths and a combination marquetry piano/room dividing screen. As a result of Tunberg's work for Maple Drive, he was awarded the 1990 Annual Design Award, Furniture Designer of the Year, by Angeles magazine. [12]
In 1991, Tunberg won the Veteran's Memorial Competition of the City of Santa Monica for his memorial design Promises Kept, which was to be installed in Palisades Park. The design consisted of a locked and barred door surrounded by a fence; a window set in the door contained an eternal flame. Tunberg stated that "I want people to see the monument, and say, 'Whoa, that is heavy!' . . . My idea was to express my true feelings, an honest assessment of what the veteran has done for the country." Selected by a city-appointed panel of three jurors from a field of eleven proposals, Tunberg's design was reproduced as a model and placed on public display. Juror Woods Davy, a sculptor, described the proposal as being the one "that had the most feeling to it', and fellow juror Thomas Rhoads, director of the Santa Monica Museum of Art, regarded it as "the most interesting and . . . thought-provoking of all the proposals". Described by former City Councilwoman Christine Reed as "that jail-door thing", the design caused a political firestorm in the Santa Monica City Council, despite support from panelists and after much uproar, the memorial was abandoned. [13] [14] 1993 brought Tunberg's first religious commission. Bel Air Church in Los Angeles commissioned a 16-foot (4.9 m) inlaid hardwood cross. When the 1994 Northridge earthquake occurred, the Los Angeles Times reported "The 300-pound cross, barely anchored to the floor, did not topple, nor was it touched by the water, though everything around it was ruined." [15] In 1996, The Presbyterian Great Vision Church in Los Angeles commissioned an 18-foot (5.5 m) inlaid hardwood cross. In 1999, Wilshire Boulevard Temple, Irmas Campus, Los Angeles, commissioned a sculptural Ark of the Covenant made of hardwood and marquetry.
In 2001, Tunberg covered the interior of Roy's Hawaiian Restaurant in Rancho Bernardo, California with marquetry sculptures. In 2003, General Dynamics commissioned two 21-foot (6.4 m) marquetry sculptures to span the VIP sections of two sister ships, Midnight Sun and North Star. In 2004–2005, Tunberg was commissioned by Chapman University in Orange, California to work with architect David C. Martin to create sculpture and furniture for Chapman's new Fish Interfaith Center. [16] [17] Tunberg created the altar, lectern, and founders' chairs for the main worship space; the communion table, lectern, and a multi-faith 7-foot (2.1 m) standard with interchangeable tops for Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faiths; and sculpture and furniture for its executive offices. [16] [17] In 2008, Chapman University commissioned an Ark of the Covenant to house a Holocaust Torah that was hidden from the Nazis and smuggled to safety during World War II. Chapman University and the Orange County Register described Tunberg as "...one of the world's foremost woodworking and marquetry artists." [18] [19] Also in 2008, the University of California, Riverside, commissioned a 30-by-10-foot (9.1 m × 3.0 m) sculptural wall for its new Alumni Center.
Sculpture and furniture commissions since 2010 include four interactive hardwood sculptures for Chapman University's Student Union, and sculptural marquetry showcases for an 1854 antique Bible and an 1833 Book of Mormon. [20]
Tunberg has exhibited drawings and sculpture at the Whitney Museum, [21] Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Orange County Museum of Art, Santa Monica Museum of Art, Portland Art Museum, Bishop Museum, and Craft and Folk Art Museum. Tunberg has exhibited at Marlborough Chelsea, [22] University of Southern California University of California, Santa Barbara, [23] UCLA Wight Gallery, [24] University of California, Berkeley, California College of the Arts, [25] American Jewish University, University of Redlands, Caltech, Pasadena, [26] Otis, Los Angeles Institute of Contemporary Art, [27] and Robert Berman Gallery. [28] Works by Tunberg are in the collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Asher Collection, [29] and São Paulo Museum of Modern Art.
Furniture refers to movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating, eating (tables), storing items, eating and/or working with an item, and sleeping. Furniture is also used to hold objects at a convenient height for work, or to store things. Furniture can be a product of design and can be considered a form of decorative art. In addition to furniture's functional role, it can serve a symbolic or religious purpose. It can be made from a vast multitude of materials, including metal, plastic, and wood. Furniture can be made using a variety of woodworking joints which often reflects the local culture.
Robert Graham was a Mexican-born American sculptor based in the state of California in the United States. His monumental bronzes commemorate the human figure, and are featured in public places across America.
The Third Street Promenade is a pedestrian mall esplanade, shopping, dining and entertainment complex in the downtown area of Santa Monica, California which originally opened as the Santa Monica Mall on November 8, 1965. It is considered a premier shopping and dining district on the Westside and draws crowds from all over the Greater Los Angeles area. Due to easy access to Downtown Los Angeles via the Big Blue Bus rapid transit service, E Line's terminus station and the Pacific Coast Highway-Santa Monica Freeway Interstate, the neighborhood's north-south thoroughfares connecting to Muscle Beach, Venice Canal Historic District, Marina del Rey, Ballona Wetlands and Los Angeles International Airport, and its proximity to historic U.S. Route 66, Santa Monica Pier, Palisades Park, Tongva Park, Santa Monica State Beach and the Pacific Ocean coupled with Los Angeles's mild mediterranean climate, it is also a popular tourist destination.
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.
Margi Scharff was an American artist. Among her better known pieces were The Night Room, Pillar of Warmth and A Series of Miscellaneous Connections. Scharff was given to using found objects in her art.
JB Blunk (1926–2002) was a sculptor who worked primarily in wood and clay. In addition to the pieces he produced in wood and ceramics, Blunk worked in other media including jewelry, furniture, painting, bronze, and stone.
Lita Albuquerque is an American installation, environmental artist, painter and sculptor. She is a part of the core faculty in the Graduate Fine Art Program at Art Center College of Design.
May Sun is a Los Angeles-based artist known primarily for her public art projects. Sun works in the mediums of sculpture, mixed media, photography and installation. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She was born in Shanghai, China, moved to Hong Kong at the age of two with her family and immigrated to the United States in 1971 to attend the University of San Diego. "May Sun often refers to aspects of her Chinese heritage in her work, which consistently crosses cultural and political boundaries as well as the boundaries traditionally separating art forms and disciplines."
Renée Petropoulos is a contemporary artist who currently lives and works in Venice, California.
Phyllis Green is an artist whose practice involves sculpture, video and installation art. Based in Santa Monica, she has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as grants from the City of Santa Monica, California Community Foundation, Durfee Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, California Arts Council, National Endowment for the Arts, Canada Council and British Columbia Cultural Fund. In 1996, she was among the first to be awarded a C.O.L.A. grant by the City of Los Angeles. In 2000, she was appointed to the Santa Monica Arts Commission, serving, as its chair from 2004 to 2006. She is married to the photographer Ave Pildas.
George Herms is an American artist best known for creating assemblages out of discarded, often rusty, dirty or broken every-day objects, and juxtaposing those objects so as to infuse them with poetry, humor and meaning. He is also known for his works on paper, including works with ink, collage, drawing, paint and poetry. The prolific Herms has also created theater pieces, about which he has said, "I treat it as a Joseph Cornell box big enough that you can walk around in. It's just a continuation of my sculpture, one year at a time." Legendary curator Walter Hopps, who met Herms in 1956, "placed Herms on a dazzling continuum of assemblage artists that includes Pablo Picasso, Kurt Schwitters, Marcel Duchamp, and Joseph Cornell, as well as California luminaries Wallace Berman and Edward Kienholz." Often called a member of the West Coast Beat movement, Herms said that Wallace Berman taught him that "any object, even a mundane cast-off, could be of great interest if contextualized properly." "That’s my whole thing," Herms says. "I turn shit into gold. I just really want to see something I've never seen before." George Herms lives and works in Los Angeles.
Alexis Smith is an American artist. She has worked in collage and installation.
Edgemar, located at 2415–2449 Main Street in Santa Monica, California, is a mixed-use shopping center designed by architect Frank Gehry that combines early 19th century warehouses, a 1940s Art Deco office building and new construction.
Dale Brockman Davis is a Los Angeles-based African-American artist, gallerist and educator best known for his assemblage sculpture and ceramic work that addresses themes of African American history and music, especially jazz. Along with his brother, artist Alonzo Davis, he co-founded Brockman Gallery in Leimert Park. Through the gallery and his broader community work, Davis became an important promoter of African-American artists in Los Angeles.
Nancy Youdelman is a mixed media sculptor who lives and works in Clovis, California. She also taught art at California State University, Fresno from 1999 until her retirement in 2013. "Since the early 1970s Youdelman has been transforming clothing into sculpture, combining women's and girl's dresses, hats, gloves, shoes, and undergarments with a variety of organic materials and common household objects.
Anthony Hanna Berlant is an American artist who was born in New York City. He attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where he received a BA (1961) and MA (1962) in painting and an MFA (1963) in sculpture. He has a large collection of Southwestern Native American art, especially Mimbres pottery and Navajo rugs. He lives and works in Santa Monica, California.
Coleen Sterritt is an American sculptor known for abstracted, hybrid works made from a myriad of everyday objects and materials, combined in unexpected ways. Writers root her work in the tradition of post-minimalists Jackie Winsor, Eva Hesse and Nancy Graves, and assemblage artists such as Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg and Marisa Merz; she is sometimes associated with contemporaries Jessica Stockholder, Nancy Rubins, and Tony Cragg. Sculpture critic Kay Whitney suggests Sterritt's work "expands and reinterprets three of the most important artistic inventions of the 20th Century—collage, abstraction and the readymade"— in play with the traditions of Arte Povera bricolage and Surrealist psychological displacement. Curator Andi Campognone considers Sterritt one of the most influential post-1970s artists in establishing "the Los Angeles aesthetic" in contemporary sculpture, while others identify her as an inspiration for later West Coast artists creating hand-made, free-standing sculpture counter to trends toward interventions, public art and environmental works. Constance Mallinson writes that Sterritt's work "walks a line between charm and threat, the natural, the industrial and the hand fabricated, rejecting easy associations for complex reads." Los Angeles Times critic David Pagel calls it smart, funky and "subtly rebellious" in its refashioning of discarded material, dumpster finds, and art-historical lineages.
Ball-Nogues Studio is a design and fabrication practice based in Los Angeles, California. Founded by Benjamin Ball and Gaston Nogues, the studio's work falls between the categories of art, architecture and industrial design. The practice is known for creating site-specific architectural installations out of unorthodox materials such as stainless steel ball-chain and spheres, paper pulp, garments, and coffee tables. The studio focuses on the process of creation, with an emphasis on the research and exploration of materials and fabrication methods. Much of the studio's work involves expanding the potential of materials and manufacturing techniques.
Tim Stead was a British sculptor and furniture maker who worked primarily in wood.
Lynn Aldrich is an American sculptor whose diverse works draw on a wide range of high and low cultural influences and materials. Her work can range from what art writers describe as "slyly Minimalist meditations" on color, light and space to whimsical "Home Depot Pop" that reveals and critiques the excesses—visual, formal and material—of unbridled consumption. Critics Leah Ollman and Claudine Ise of the Los Angeles Times have described Aldrich's art, respectively, as a "consumerist spin on the assemblage tradition" and a "witty and inventive brand of kitchen-sink Conceptualism" LA Weekly critic Doug Harvey calls her "one of the most under-recognized sculptors in L.A.," whose hallmarks are the poetic transformation of found/appropriated materials, formal inventiveness and restless eclecticism. Aldrich has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Hammer Museum, Santa Monica Museum of Art, and venues throughout the United States and Europe. She has been recognized with a Guggenheim Fellowship (2014) and public art collection acquisitions by LACMA, MOCA Los Angeles and the Portland Art Museum, among others.
Somehow the circumstantial neutralization of [Bill Tunberg]'s restrained virtuosity brings to mind another comic-strip-world event that went largely unremarked over the holidays.
| General | |
|---|---|
| National libraries | |
