Robert Arneson
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Robert Arneson (1930-1992) was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at UC Davis for four decades.
[edit] Career
Arneson, who was born in Benicia, California, died in 1992 after a long battle with cancer. After spending time early in life as a cartoonist for a local paper, Arneson studied art education in Oakland, and went on to receive an MFA in 1958. Starting in the 1960s, Arneson and several other California artists began to abandon the traditional manufacture of functional items in favor of using everyday objects to make confrontational statements. The new movement was dubbed "Funk Art," and Arneson is considered the "father of the ceramic Funk movement."
He used common objects in his work, which included both ceramic sculptures and drawings. He appeared in many of his own pieces — as a chef, a man picking his nose, a jean-jacketed hipster in sunglasses.
Even his Eggheads bear a self-resemblance. Among the last works Arneson completed before his death, the last of the Eggheads were installed on campus at UC Davis in 1994. The controversial pieces continue to serve as a source of interest and discussion on the campus, even inspiring a campus blog by the same name.
[edit] In collections around the world
Arneson's fame is far-reaching, and his works can be found in public and private collections around the world.
The public can find his work in the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C.; the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Chicago Art Institute; the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kyoto, Japan; the U.S. Embassy in Yeravan, Armenia; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
The Nelson Gallery at UC Davis owns 70 of the artist's works, including The Palace at 9 a.m., which can be found on the lower level of Shields Library near the government documents. The 70-square-foot earthenware sculpture, a depiction of his former Davis residence, is considered among his most famous sculptures. Several of his etchings and lithographs also are on display in the library.
[edit] Sources
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