Lee Bontecou

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Lee Bontecou (born January 15, 1931 in Providence , Rhode Island ) is an American artist who is known for her sculptures made of everyday objects and industrial materials.

Life and artistic training

Lee Bontecou grew up in New York City and Nova Scotia . She studied at the Art Students League of New York in New York City between 1952 and 1956 , where she received a scholarship in 1954 and 1955 . She spent the summer of 1954 at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in the US state of Maine . After completing her studies, she received a scholarship through the Fulbright Program , which enabled her to continue studying in Rome , where she lived until her return to New York in 1958. She married her husband William Giles in 1965 and between 1970 and 1991 she was a professor in the Art Department of Brooklyn College .

Career as an artist

Lee Bontecou had her first solo exhibition in 1959 and a year later the famous gallery owner Leo Castelli exhibited her works. Her sculptures were mostly aggressive-looking relief sculptures made of industrial materials, for example parts of conveyor belts or aircraft parts. These machine-like works of art were characterized by protruding points and gaping holes that evoked associations of open mouths or vaginas in the viewer. In addition to the sculptures, Bontecou always exhibited drawings, sometimes a combination of both. One of her main works bears the title of the year it was published - 1964 . For this, she designed a wall relief for the New York State Theater , for which she used, among other things, the plexiglass dome of a bomber from the Second World War . The entire relief was then more than six meters in size. In 1966 she received first prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters .

Around the same time as the birth of her daughter, the style of her works changed towards the end of the 1960s, and they now seemed less aggressive and gloomy. Rather, they were mostly sculptures made of plastic that were modeled on the shapes of flowers. This new direction in her art could not meet the expectations of the public and during the following decades Bontecou could no longer build on earlier successes. In 2004 Lee Bontecou was elected a member ( NA ) of the National Academy of Design and the American Academy of Arts and Letters; In 2007 she was accepted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . She currently lives in Orbisonia , Pennsylvania, USA .

Collections (selection)

Exhibitions (selection)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica: Lee Bontecou
  2. ↑ nationalacademy.org: Living Academicians "B" / Bontecou, ​​Lee, NA 2004 ( Memento of the original from August 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (accessed on June 13, 2015) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nationalacademy.org
  3. ↑ Academy Members. American Academy of Arts and Sciences, accessed January 10, 2019 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Bontecou, ​​Lee
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American artist
DATE OF BIRTH January 15, 1931
PLACE OF BIRTH Providence , Rhode Island