Tom Wesselmann

Artist: Tom Wesselmann, American (1931 - 2004)
Title: Monica Nude with Matisse
Year: 1992
Medium: Embossed Etching with Aquatint, signed and numbered in pencil
Edition: 57/75
Size: 38 x 60 inches

Tom Wesselmann, American (1931 - 2004)

Tom Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati, studied at Hiram College and then at the University of Cincinnati, where he earned a degree in psychology in 1956. After two years in the army, he attended the Art Academy of Cincinnati and then went to New York to study at the Cooper Union Art School. Although his earliest works leaned toward abstract expressionism his style underwent a series of dramatic changes and eventually led to his becoming an important exponent of pop art.

In 1961, Wesselmann had his first one-man show in New York and began his most famous series, -Great American Nudes. Since then he has had frequent exhibits in prominent American and European galleries. His work has been included in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Walker Art Institute, Minneapolis, to name just three of a long, impressive list.

One year after 1961, he participated in the group exhibition 'New Realists' at the Sidney Janis Gallery, his international career with numerous exhibitions started off. The same year his first assemblages with the title 'Still Life' came into existence. In 1963 Wesselmann married his girl-friend and fellow student Claire Selley, who also was his most important model. He began a series of 'Bathtub Collages'. In 1966 the first of many one-man shows took place at the Janis Gallery. In 1964 Tom Wesselmann began with further series, e.g. 'Bedroom Paintings', 'Seascapes' and 'Smokers', which he continued until the early 1980s. In 1980 he published a treatise about his artistic development under the pseudonym Slim Stealingworth. In 1983 first 'Metal Works' were produced, which were based on the artist's drawings and sketches and which are still in the centre of the artist's interest. In 1994 a comprehensive retrospective took place at the Kunsthalle in Tübingen. Wesselmann died in New York on 17 December 2004. His choice of trivial motifs, thier monumentalisation, reduction to stereotypes, sexual embelematic as well as the use of bright colours made Wesselmann a co-founder of the American Pop-Art during the 1960s.