Robert Arneson

Robert Carston Arneson (September 4, 1930 – November 2, 1992) was an American sculptor and professor of ceramics in the Art department at UC Davis for nearly three decades.[1]

Robert Arneson
"California Artist," by Robert Arneson, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Born(1930-09-04)September 4, 1930
Benicia, California
DiedNovember 2, 1992(1992-11-02) (aged 62)
NationalityAmerican
EducationCalifornia College of the Arts, Mills College
Known forSculpture
MovementFunk movement, Nut art
Doyen by Robert Arneson, 1972, glazed ceramic, Honolulu Museum of Art

Career

Arneson was born in Benicia, California. He graduated from Benicia High School and spent much of his early life as a cartoonist for a local paper. Arneson studied at California College of the Arts in Oakland, California for his BFA and went on to receive an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California in 1958.

During the start of the 1960s, Arneson and several other California artists began to abandon the traditional manufacture of functional ceramic objects and instead began to make nonfunctional sculptures that made confrontational statements. The new movement was dubbed Funk Art, and Arneson is considered the father of the ceramic Funk movement.[2]

His body of work contains many self-portraits which have has been described as an "autobiography in clay".[3] Doyen from 1972, in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art is an example of the artist's humorously caricatured self-portraits.

Even his large Eggheads sculptures bear a self-resemblance. Among the last works Arneson completed before his 1992 death, five Eggheads were installed on campus at UC Davis around 1994.[4] The controversial pieces[2] continue to serve as a source of interest and discussion on the campus, even inspiring a campus blog by the same name. Two additional copies of Eggheads were installed in San Francisco.[4]

One of Arneson's most famous and controversial works is a bust of George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco who was assassinated in 1978. Inscribed on the pedestal of the bust are words representing events in Moscone's life, including his assassination: the words "Bang Bang Bang Bang Bang",[5] "Twinkies," and "Harvey Milk Too!" are visible on the front of the pedestal.[6]

Teaching career

Arneson's teaching career began soon after receiving his MFA degree from California College of Arts, with a stint at Santa Rosa Junior College, in Santa Rosa, California (1958–59). This was followed by a position at Fremont High School (1959–60) in Oakland, California, before advancing to teach design and crafts at Mills College, also located in Oakland (1960–62).[7]

Arneson's next appointment (in 1962) was at UC Davis, where his talents were recognized by Richard L. Nelson, who had founded the Art Department. It was during this period of the early 60s that Nelson was assembling a faculty that would come to be celebrated as one of the most prestigious in the nation. In addition to Arneson, Nelson had also selected Manuel Neri, Wayne Thiebaud and William T. Wiley, each of whom would go on to achieve international recognition...

Initially hired to teach design classes (in the College of Agriculture),[7] it was Arneson who established the ceramic sculpture program for the Art Department. It was in many ways a bold and radical move, in that ceramics were not yet recognized as a medium appropriate for fine art at that time.[8]

Since its founding, the campus ceramics studio has been housed in a corrugated metal building known as TB-9,[9] and it was here that Arneson held court for nearly three decades until his retirement in the summer of 1991.[10]

Death
Robert C. Arneson Park in Benicia

Arneson died on November 2, 1992, after a long battle with liver cancer. His home town of Benicia, California established a park in his memory, along the Carquinez Strait.

Collections

Arneson's fame is far-reaching, and his works can be found in public and private collections around the world, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, Virginia), the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington, DC), di Rosa (Napa, California), the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York City), the Museum of Contemporary Art (Kyoto, Japan), the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Racine Art Museum (Racine, Wisconsin), the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York City), the Birmingham Museum of Art, and the US Embassy in Yerevan, Armenia. His creations are also at the Lowe Art Museum in Coral Gables, Florida.

The Nelson Gallery at UC Davis, where Arneson was a faculty member, owns 70 of the artist's works, including The Palace at 10am, which is currently on display in the gallery. The 70-square-foot (6.5 m2) 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.[11]

Footnotes
  1. California Death Records (The California Department of Health Services)
  2. Levin, Elaine (1988). The History of American Ceramics: From Pipkins and Bean Pots to Contemporary Forms, 1607 to the present. Ny, Ny: Harry N. Abrams. pp. 227–230. ISBN 0-8109-1172-8.
  3. https://www.ucdavis.edu/eggheads/robert-arneson/ Sintetos, Mike, Robert Arneson: Serious Ideas Behind that Humor, UC Davis website
  4. "Eggheads". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 2017-02-28.
  5. King, John (May 22, 2008). "Moscone's first bust caused quite a stir in S.F." SFGate.
  6. "SFMOMA ACQUIRES ROBERT ARNESON'S FAMOUS BUST OF GEORGE MO…". www.sfmoma.org.
  7. Benezra, Neal (1986). Robert Arneson. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press. ISBN 0-295-96348-4.
  8. Biography
  9. "Robert Arneson". www.davidgilhooly.com. Archived from the original on 8 February 2015.
  10. Hagen, Charles (November 5, 1992). "Robert C. Arneson Is Dead at 62; Sculptor of Whimsical Portraits" – via NYTimes.com.
  11. A tribute to Robert Carston Arneson

References
  • Arneson, Robert, Arneson and the Object, University Park, PA. Palmer Museum of Art, 2004 ISBN 0-911209-61-1
  • Arneson, Robert and Jonathan Fineberg, Robert Arneson, Self-reflections, San Francisco, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1997 ISBN 0-918471-39-7
  • Arneson, Robert and Helen Williams Drutt, Robert Arneson, Self-portraits, Philadelphia, Moore College of Art, 1979.
  • Benezra, Neal, Robert Arneson, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1986 ISBN 0-295-96348-4.
  • Benezra, Neal, Robert Arneson, a Retrospective, Des Moines, Iowa, Des Moines Art Center, 1985 ISBN 0-9614615-1-9
  • Faberman, Hilarie, Tenley C. Bick and Susan C. Cameron, Fired at Davis: figurative ceramic sculpture by Robert Arneson, visiting professors, and students at the University of California at Davis, Stanford, Calif., Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts, 2005 ISBN 978-0-937031-28-5
  • Fineberg, Jonathan, "A Troublesome Subject: The Art of Robert Arneson," Berkeley, University of California Press, 2013 ISBN 978-0-520-27383-2.
  • Levin, Elaine, The History of American Ceramics: From Pipkins and Bean Pots to Contemporary Forms, 1607 to the Present, Hew York, Harry N. Abrams, 1988, pp. 227–230.
  • Nash, Steven A., Arneson and Politics, a commemorative exhibition, San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1993 ISBN 0-88401-077-5
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