Tom Wesselmann

Tom Wesselmann (born February 23, 1931 in Cincinnati , Ohio , † December 17, 2004 in New York ) was an American painter , printmaker and object artist .

Life

Wesselmann studied from 1945 to 1951 at Hiram College , Hiram , Ohio and since 1951 psychology at the University of Cincinnati .

During the Korean War , he did his military service (1952 to 1954) and began drawing cartoons . After the war he began his art studies at the Art Academy in Cincinnati; 1956–59 he studied at the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture in New York. He had his first solo exhibition at the Tanager Gallery in New York in 1961. Wesselmann began in the Expressionist style, which he soon turned away from.

Alongside Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol , Wesselmann became one of the most important representatives of American Pop Art . His leitmotif was female nudes in sexual provocation. His large-format Great American Nudes are famous , of which the Great Naked No. 98 is on display in the Ludwig Museum in Cologne . Other works are held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Wesselmann drew aesthetic suggestions from the typical advertising of the 60s and 70s (brochures, posters, images from film and television). His work raises the question of whether it is a satirical criticism of the modern consumer world or whether it simply glorifies it.

Since 1983, Wesselmann has also created nude figures and still lifes out of metal by transferring his drawings to metal plates and cutting them out with a laser beam. In addition to these collages, he further developed Robert Rauschenberg's assemblage technique .

In 1980 he wrote the book Abstract Maquettes under the pseudonym "Slim Stealingworth" .

In December 2004 Wesselmann died of complications from heart surgery at the age of 73.

Exhibitions

• 1962 Participation in the exhibition The Figure at the Museum of Modern Art , New York
• 1963 Participation in the exhibition Pop Goes the East at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston , Houston , Texas
• 1965 Participation in the Young America 1965 exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art , New York
• 1968 participation in the 4th documenta in Kassel
• 1970 and 1974 exhibition tour through the USA
• 1974 Participation in the American Pop Art exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, New York
• 1976 Participation in the exhibition Illusion of Reality at the Art Gallery of New South Wales , Sydney
• 1977 participation in documenta 6 in Kassel
• 1994 Institute for Cultural Exchange Tübingen, retrospective 1959–1993 Tour exhibition through ten European museums, Kunsthalle Tübingen , Palais de Beaux-Arts, Brussels , Altes Museum, Berlin , Museum Villa Stuck, Munich , Kunsthal Rotterdam , Historical Museum of the Palatinate, Speyer , Fundación Juan March, Madrid , Fundación Caixa de Catalunya, Barcelona , Tate Gallery, London , Musée d´Art Moderne, Nice
• 2013 Tom Wesselmann Galerie Thomas Modern, Munich Film for the exhibition

Collections

• Falckenberg Collection

Books

• Tom Wesselmann 1959-1993 . Hatje Cantz Verlag, 1994, ISBN 3-89322-635-4 .
• As Slim Stealingworth (pseudonym): Abstract Maquettes . Weidle Verlag, 2002, ISBN 3-931135-53-5 .
• Tom Wesselmann . Charter 2004, ISBN 88-8158-450-6 .
• Black and white ; with Gérard A. Goodrow, Weidle Verlag, 2005, ISBN 3-931135-84-5 .
• Tom Wesselmann - His Voice and Vision ; by John Wilmerding, Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2008, ISBN 978-0-8478-3139-5 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Tom Wesselmann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Tom Wesselmann  in the German Digital Library
• Search for Tom Wesselmann in the SPK digital portal of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
• Materials by and about Tom Wesselmann in the documenta archive
• Website with images of well-known works by Wesselmann
• The human user interface - On the death of the painter Wesselmann on sueddeutsche.de