Robin Utterback

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Robin Utterback (born: Robert Franklin Utterback)(1949–2007) was a contemporary artist from Houston, Texas.

Houston City in Texas, United States

Houston is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the fourth most populous city in the United States, with a census-estimated population of 2.312 million in 2017. It is the most populous city in the Southern United States and on the Gulf Coast of the United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the seat of Harris County and the principal city of the Greater Houston metropolitan area, which is the fifth most populous metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the United States and the second most populous in Texas after the Dallas-Fort Worth MSA. With a total area of 627 square miles (1,620 km2), Houston is the eighth most expansive city in the United States. Though primarily in Harris county, small portions of the city extend into Fort Bend & Montgomery counties.

Texas State of the United States of America

Texas is the second largest state in the United States by both area and population. Geographically located in the South Central region of the country, Texas shares borders with the U.S. states of Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the west, and the Mexican states of Chihuahua, Coahuila, Nuevo León, and Tamaulipas to the southwest, while the Gulf of Mexico is to the southeast.

Contents

Career

Born in the small town of Holton, Kansas, Utterback graduated from Rice University with a bachelor's degree in fine arts in 1971 and specialized in abstract painting. [1] Utterback's works were displayed in other parts of the United States and the world. [2] Houston museums that displayed his works include the Menil Collection and the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Donahue/Sosinski Art in New York City showcased some of Utterback's works. [3]

Holton, Kansas City and County seat in Kansas, United States

Holton is a city in and the county seat of Jackson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 3,329.

Rice University university in Houston, Texas, USA

William Marsh Rice University, commonly known as Rice University, is a private research university located on a 300-acre campus in Houston, Texas, United States. The university is situated near the Houston Museum District and is adjacent to the Texas Medical Center.

Bachelors degree Undergraduate academic degree

A bachelor's degree or baccalaureate is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to seven years. In some institutions and educational systems, some bachelor's degrees can only be taken as graduate or postgraduate degrees after a first degree has been completed. In countries with qualifications frameworks, bachelor's degrees are normally one of the major levels in the framework, although some qualifications titled bachelor's degrees may be at other levels and some qualifications with non-bachelor's titles may be classified as bachelor's degrees.

Often described as a "painter's painter", Utterback was a contemporary abstract artist and an integral part of the Houston art community for more than thirty years. Utterback's body of work varied from monochromatic planes emphasizing surface and light, to deconstructed, three-dimensional reliefs in which paint and plaster were layered directly upon the wooden substrate of the canvas. Drawing played a more dominant role in his later work, and he explored line and gesture by painting on unprimed canvas.

Death

At around 6:30 P.M. on March 29, a fire erupted in a 2,880-square-foot (268 m2) metal warehouse in the 2300 block of Grant Street near Fairview in the Neartown area of Houston. Utterback became unconscious and was extracted from the burning building. Fifty-seven-year-old Utterback died of his injuries on March 30 at the Memorial Hermann Hospital in the Texas Medical Center; his death was pronounced at 6:05 A.M. [4] [5]

Neartown Houston district in Houston, Texas, USA

Neartown is an area located in west-central Houston, Texas, United States and is one of the city's major cultural areas. Neartown is a 7.5 square miles (19 km2) area roughly bounded by Interstate 69/U.S. Highway 59 to the south, Allen Parkway to the north, Shepherd Drive to the west, and Taft to Fairview to Bagby to Highway 59 to Main to the east. Neartown neighborhoods include Cherryhurst, Courtlandt Place, Hyde Park, Montrose, Vermont Commons, East Montrose, Mandell Place and Winlow Place. These neighborhoods are collectively referred to locally as the better known Montrose.

Texas Medical Center Business district and neighborhood of Houston in Harris County, Texas, United States

The Texas Medical Center (TMC) is a 2.1-square-mile (5.4 km2) medical district and neighborhood in south-central Houston, Texas, immediately south of the Museum District and west of Texas State Highway 288. Over sixty medical institutions, largely concentrated in a triangular area between Brays Bayou, Rice University, and Hermann Park, are members of the Texas Medical Center Corporation—a non-profit umbrella organization—which constitutes the largest medical complex in the world. The TMC has an extremely high density of clinical facilities for patient care, basic science, and translational research.

On April 2, 2007, investigators found that 56-year-old Clifford David Gaylord, Utterback's roommate, fatally stabbed Utterback before setting the fire. [6] [7] Policemen found Gaylord seriously injured on March 30 at 100 Heights Boulevard after Gaylord attempted to commit suicide by being hit by a train. Gaylord, admitted to Ben Taub General Hospital, died of his injuries at 6:07 A.M.

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