DeWain Valentine
De Wain Valentine (1936 – February 20, 2022) was an American minimalist sculptor who was born in Fort Collins, Colorado. Often associated with the Light and Space movement in the 1960s, he is best known for his minimalist sculptures of translucent glass (such as Diamond Column in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art), fiberglass and cast polyester resin (such as Double Pyramid in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art) having slick surfaces suggestive of machine made objects. He lived and worked in Gardena, California.[1]
Early life and career
Valentine worked in boat shops and began to make art pieces from plastic, which he tried unsuccessfully to show in New York City.[1] He received his B.F.A from the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1958.[2] During his time at the school, he studied alongside American painter, Richard Diebenkorn, whom he credits with turning Valentine onto color.[3] Attracted by the work of artists such as Larry Bell, Craig Kauffman, and Kenneth Price, which he learned about by reading the magazine Artforum, Valentine moved to Los Angeles in 1965 and had his first solo show at the Ace Gallery in 1968.[4]
Work
Influenced by the seascapes and skies of
The technology Valentine was working with allowed him to created tall column sculptures. These can be seen in pieces such as, Diamond Column (1978), which is actually one the last works he created in cast resin.[10] This sculpture is close to eight feet tall and four feet wide. The edges of the work remain at half an inch wide is about a foot deep at its widest point. This piece, along with his other tall columns, carries his illusory structure, managing to change in opaqueness and transparency depending on the angle it is being viewed at. Viewing it from one of the two sides, you'd see the four sides are rounded but the corners going down the central seams are sharp. The colors he implements are blue-green, green-blue, lavender, and bronze. This piece has been described as a challenge to create by Valentine. The challenge lied in that Valentine and his assistants resorted to rendering the surfaces of the sculpture by hand.
Personal life and death
Valentine died on February 20, 2022, at the age of 86.[11]
Collections
The
Recognition
In 1980, Valentine received a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.[12]
Art market
In October 2011, Valentine’s Circle, a robin’s egg blue resin disk only 17 inches in diameter, sold at L.A. Modern Auctions for $32,500, a record for the artist and well over six times the high estimate of $5,000. Monumental disks by Valentine can go for $500,000 to $1 million.[13]
Exhibitions
- Edmonton Art Gallery, An Exhibition of five recent works by Larry Bell, John McCracken, DeWain Valentine, Ron Cooper [and] Peter Alexander, Edmonton, Canada, Edmonton Art, 1971.
- Milwaukee Art Center, Eight Artists: Lynda Benglis, Sam Gilliam, Ralph Goings, Hans Haacke, Duane Hanson, Sol LeWitt, DeWain Valentine, Richard Van Buren, Milwaukee, Milwaukee Art Center, 1971.
- Pasadena Art Museum, DeWain Valentine: Recent Sculpture, Pasadena, Calif., Pasadena Art Museum, 1970.
- Long Beach Museum of Art, Spectrum Horizon Installation, 1975[14]
- Fine Arts Gallery, DeWain Valentine, University of California, Irvine, 1979.[15]
- Valentine, DeWain, DeWain Valentine 1985, Honolulu, D. Valentine, 1985.
- Valentine, DeWain, DeWain Valentine, An Exhibition Organized by the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, Calif., La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, 1975.
- Erik Barnes and Daniel Desure (2011), From Start to Finish: The Story of Gray Column, a 29-minute documentary film about the making and restoration of Valentine's art, screened at the Getty Center in 2011–2012 in conjunction with an exhibit of Valentine's art there [1] and shown at the 2012 Newport Beach Film Festival [2].
References
- ^ a b c Randy Kennedy (September 15, 2011), "Reputation and Monolith, Both Stand Tall" The New York Times.
- OCLC 1942393.
- ISBN 9781941701201.
- ^ De Wain Valentine Getty Center, Los Angeles.
- ^ Vanessa Thorpe (October 9, 2011), "De Wain Valentine's Gray Column restored for modern art show" The Guardian.
- ^ Michael Palumbo (September 13, 2011), "'Gray Column' at Getty Museum reflects De Wain Valentine’s lifelong fascination with plastics" The Daily Bruin.
- , retrieved 2022-11-01
- ^ Wortz, Melinda (1979). Dewain Valentine / [introduction by] Melinda Wortz.
- ^ Mary Helen Berg (October 5, 1989), "Nine Awards to be Given by Governor" Los Angeles Times.
- ISBN 9781941701201.
- ^ Greenberger, Alex (22 February 2022). "De Wain Valentine, Sculptor Who Made Plastic Into an Art Form, Dies at 86". ArtNews Magazine. Retrieved 22 February 2022.
- ^ DeWain Valentine Archived 2011-11-12 at the Wayback Machine John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York.
- ^ Julia Halperin (May 2, 2012), "It’s Like Someone Turned a Tap On”: How Pacific Standard Time Transformed the Market for California Minimalism ARTINFO.
- OCLC 1942393.
- ^ Wortz, Melinda (1979). Dewain Valentine / [introduction by] Melinda Wortz.