Object Label Copy
Gallery L3 – Pop Art
Marilyn Levine
Canadian, 1933–2005
Sand Backpack, 1974
Stoneware
Take another look. This object is not what it seems. Marilyn Levine
has sculpted, in stoneware clay, a hyper-realistic semblance of a worn
leather backpack. Resting on a pedestal in the gallery, it is easily
mistaken for the real thing. Levine is best known for her convincing sculptures of shoes, battered
luggage, gloves, handbags, golf bags and leather jackets hung from hooks. Sand Backpack and works
like it date from the 1970s and are characterized as California Funk. But Levine’s intent was serious.
She understood that these old things were metaphors for life, for elapsed time and for all that had
happened along the way. In this metaphoric sense, her sculptures are evidence of a person’s
existence.
Gift of the Friends of Art, F75-11
Tom Wesselmann
American, b. 1931
Still Life No. 24, 1962
Acrylic polymer on board, fabric curtain
Pop artist Tom Wesselmann's Still Life No. 24 affirms the American
dream and the prosperity of the 1960s middle class. The variety, size
and quantity of the fresh, canned and packaged convenience foods
give evidence of agricultural abundance, factory productivity, and a thriving consumer economy.
Television, with its myriad product advertisements, became a central force of cultural change.
Still Life No. 24 is an assemblage composed of two-dimensional imagery and three-dimensional
objects. Wesselmann cut images of foodstuffs and kitchen items from subway posters and other
large advertisements. The plastic ear of corn is an advertising prop, acquired by the artist from a
vendor on Coney Island who sold corn on the cob.
The blue curtain is of the type pictured in magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal, which promoted
interior design to the middle class. Through the window, a sailboat glides along, further suggesting
the good life of the American dream.
Gift of the Guild of the Friends of Art F66-54
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Object Label Copy – Galleries L3 & L4
February, 2012
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Wayne Thiebaud
American, b. 1920
Jawbreaker Machine, 1963
Oil on canvas
Wayne Thiebaud’s Jawbreaker Machine is a frontal, iconic image. His
distinctive still life paintings of pinball machines, toys and foodstuffs
such as pies, cakes, sundaes and sandwiches, are inspired by
childhood memories spent on the boardwalk in Long Beach,
California. In Jawbreaker Machine the subject rests upon a stark white ground, inviting us to
concentrate on the sumptuous handling of paint and the object’s simplified form and intensified
color. Here, even the shadows are colored and the contours of the candies are outlined in
contrasting colors. Thiebaud charges this otherwise ordinary subject with dynamic visual energy.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Glenn through the Friends of Art, F65-46
Robert Rauschenberg
American, 1925-2008
Tracer, 1963
Oil and silkscreen on canvas
Tracer is one of the 79 silkscreened paintings Robert Rauschenberg
produced between 1963 and 1964, whose imagery is derived from everyday
information- photographs, newspapers and magazines. Tracer alludes to the
Vietnam War by incorporating American symbols of war and patriotismarmy helicopters and a bald eagle. It also juxtaposes an urban street scene
and a reproduction of Peter Paul Rubens’ Venus at Her Toilet (ca. 1613-15),
a classic image of beauty and love. Rauschenberg presents modern culture bombarded by conflicting
images, signs and information.
Rauschenberg is considered a pivotal figure in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop
Art. He unites the disparate imagery of Pop with the bold brushwork of Abstract Expressionism.
Purchase: Nelson Gallery Foundation, F84-70
John Chamberlain
American, 1927 - 2011
Huzzy, 1961
Steel, paint, and chromium plating with fabric
John Chamberlain was one of the first artists to successfully translate the
sensibilities of American Abstract Expressionist painting into sculpture. In an
almost painterly fashion, Chamberlain bends, crushes, arranges and then welds
together discarded parts from wrecked automobiles, transforming the rawness
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of found materials into compositions of fluidity and grace.
In Huzzy, Chamberlain creates a gestural energy through curved planes, intersecting angles and the
incorporation of color. He adds variation in texture and subtle commentary through the
incorporation of real female undergarments. The use of clothing and automobile parts links
Chamberlain’s art to popular culture.
Gift of Mrs. Charles F. Buckwalter in memory of Charles F. Buckwalter, F64-8
Andy Warhol
American, 1928-1987
Baseball, 1962
Silkscreen and oil on canvas
Andy Warhol is a paragon of American Pop Art of the 1960s. Like other
artists associated with Pop, he borrowed images from popular culture in
defiance of traditional sources for fine art. Cultural icons such as Marilyn
Monroe and Campbell’s soup cans are featured in Warhol’s silkscreen
paintings. By using silkscreen, a technique used in mass production,
Warhol further denied the notion of art as a unique object bearing the mark of an individual, artistic
personality.
Baseball was the first photo-silkscreened painting by Warhol. It celebrates the American institution of
baseball and incorporates a news photograph of New York Yankee Roger Maris. Maris became
famous in 1961 after he broke Babe Ruth’s home run record.
Gift of the Guild of the Friends of Art, and other friends of the Museum, F63-16
Richard Estes
American, born 1932
Bus Window, 1968–1973
Oil on masonite
puzzles.
Richard Estes crops the image of an ordinary city bus to focus our
attention on the windshield and its reflections. Distorted by the window’s
curve, mirrored images of buildings and street signs are rendered
meticulously. The glass reveals little of the bus’ interior. Instead, it reflects
the viewer’s surroundings. Estes, a photorealist artist, fuses information
from multiple photographs to construct images that draw us in, like visual
Bequest of Estelle S. Ellis, 2005.10.4
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Object Label Copy – Galleries L3 & L4
February, 2012
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David Hockney
English, b. 1937
Invented Man Revealing Still Life, 1975
Oil on canvas
Invented Man Revealing Still Life expresses the playful dualities-abstraction
and realism, flatness and depth, that characterize much of David
Hockney's art. His imaginary man, composed of the abstract forms of a
blocky torso and stick-like legs, raises a curtain to reveal a relatively
realistic vase of flowers. Hockney overturns the laws of perspective by
placing the two-dimensional, flat figure in front of a three-dimensional table that seems to recede
toward an imaginary vanishing point. On closer inspection, the back horizontal edge of the table is
wider than the front, contradicting the spatial illusion. In Invented Man Revealing Still Life, Hockney's
playful manipulation of space and form confirm his commitment to the idea that art should be
pleasurable and accessible to everyone.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William L. Evans Jr., 78-35
Tom Burckhardt
American, b. 1964
Double Team
Enamel paint on panel
Tom Burckhardt's Double Team represents his signature style-an abstract
composition of energetic patterns and bright colors interwoven with passages of
realism.
depicted.
In the lower register of Double Team, the large square of warm beige doubles as
an abstract element and construction material. Burckhardt manipulates scale and
spatial relationships, representing diminutive workmen with caps and tool belts,
who labor to construct the composition of the work of art in which they are
The postmodern Double Team borrows freely from earlier styles-zigzagging lines and stripes from
Pattern & Decoration and Op Art, squares of color from Hans Hofmann and the vertical format of
Chinese landscape painting. The red calligraphic line recalls Abstract Expressionism except that here
the stylized gesture is a carefully planned, formulaic drip.
Purchase: Acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation – Commerce
Bank, Trustee, 2006.1
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Object Label Copy – Galleries L3 & L4
February, 2012
p. 4
Edward Ruscha
American, b. 1937
Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive, 1969
Oil on canvas
In Bouncing Marbles, Bouncing Apple, Bouncing Olive, Edward Ruscha
explores an obscure language of visual relationships. He divorces the
objects depicted from their everyday contexts by placing them within an
infinite, surreal space. The relationships that exist among the marbles,
apple and olive are equally mysterious, and we are left with any number
of interpretations. The marbles might refer to childhood, the olive to hors d’oeuvres and martinis
and the apple to the Fall of Adam and Eve. Such a reading makes this a meditation on the loss of
innocence. Alternately, Ruscha may have constructed a playful dialog among round forms or a
treatise on Newton’s law.
Gift of Norman and Elaine Polsky, Fixtures Furniture, Kansas City, F86-50/3
Wayne Thiebaud
American, b. 1920
Bikini, 1964
Oil on canvas
Wayne Thiebaud, who is best known for his still-life paintings ( Jawbreaker Machine,
this gallery), turned to figural studies in 1963 and 1964. In Bikini, a fusion of realist
and Pop Art interests, Thiebaud treats the human body as an inanimate, static
object—literally a still life.
Here, there is no psychological insight into the personality of his subject. The
figure’s pose reveals a minimum of action and emotion and, though clad in a
bikini, she communicates no erotic overtones. The absence of props or a setting
for the figure further eliminates the suggestion of a narrative. Thiebaud outlines the figure in green,
red and blue to add visual energy to the form, yet isolates it against a neutral, white background.
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Louis Sosland, F66-35
Ingmar Relling, designer
Norwegian, 1920–2002
Westnofa, manufacturer
Norway, active 1950s–60s
Siesta Chair and Ottoman, ca. 1965
Beech with leather and canvas
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February, 2012
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Robert Sonneman, designer
American, born 1942
Robert Sonneman Associates, Inc., manufacturer
Suspended Arch Arm Orbiter Floor Lamp, ca. 1967
Chromium
Simple, accessible and ergonomic forms were the height of sophistication and
comfort for many Europeans and Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. The
elegant, bent laminated wooden frame of the Siesta Chair cradles a leather
cushion allowing the user to be supported and relaxed. The Orbiter Floor Lamp
allows the user to adjust the thin, highly functional arm to any position. Both
the furniture and lamp are still in production today, a testament to their enduring place as exemplars
of modern design.
Gifts of Margaret Jeter Doan, 2011.60.1-3
Sigmar Polke
German, 1941-2010
Untitled, ca.1979-1983
Acrylic and spray enamel on two attached sheets of paper
In Untitled, Sigmar Polke juxtaposes expressive brushstrokes
with stenciled images borrowed from sources such as
advertisements, comic books and magazines. On the left, a
puzzled man looks toward an agitated woman, who turns away
and covers her ears with her hands. Opposite, a man holds an unidentified package. The mood is
tense. What is happening? Is this a broken engagement, a revelation of marital infidelity or
something else entirely?
Polke implies a narrative and then confounds it. Meaning is ambiguous. In Untitled, the contrived
emotions, expressed through the woman's gesture and the confused on-looker, are the same as those
disseminated in popular culture. Untitled represents the sense of emotional distance in a society
emptied of communication and compassion. Polke is a detached skeptic.
Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation – Commerce
Bank, Trustee, 2003.8
Roy Lichtenstein
American, 1923-1997
Still Life with Brushes, Shell and Star Fish, 1972
Oil and magna acrylic on canvas
Roy Lichtenstein was one of the leading painters of the Pop Art
movement. During the 1960s he translated banal advertisements and
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adventure comic strips into large-scale paintings, using bright, flat colors and hard-edge, precise
drawing. Benday dots, integral to the photo-mechanical printing process, are exaggerated to the
point of becoming design elements in the art.
Still Life with Brushes, Shell and Star Fish belongs to a series of paintings by Lichtenstein that
investigates the styles and subjects of art history. In this painting, Lichtenstein defies our
expectations for the still life by rendering it in the visual language of the comic strip. He reminds us
that the process of mechanical reproduction reduces all works of art to simple arrangements of dots.
Gift of the Friends of Art, F73-15
Robert Cottingham
American, b. 1935
Art, 1992
Color lithograph
Robert Cottingham combines abstraction and illusionism to create
images drawn from popular culture. In this lithograph, Cottingham
draws our attention to the single word "art" by removing it from its
association with other words in the title on the neon theater marquee.
Is he hinting that art is a thing of the past, something once grand but
now just a nostalgic afterglow? Or is he more interested in the combined abstract effect of the
forms, colors, curved lines and angles in the image?
Gift in memory of Dr. John W. Hardy by the Print Society, Miss Elaine Blaylock, Mr. John L.
Coakley Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Curtis B. Cutting, Mr. and Mrs. John R. Dixon, Mr. and Mrs. Robert S.
Everitt, Dr. Jeanne E. Fish, Dr. and Mrs. Leo R. Goertz, Mr. and Mrs. Michael Gross, Mr. Edward
R. Levy, Mr. and Mrs. George L. McKenna, Miss Sharon Seymour, Mrs. Lois Spears, and Mrs. Paula
Thoburn. F93-2
George Segal
American, 1924-2000
Chance Meeting, 1989
Plaster, aluminum, and galvanized steel
Chance Meeting represents one of George Segal’s favorite motifs: people on
city streets. A one way street sign identifies an urban environment, while
three figures face each other in close proximity. This pose, along with the
title, implies that they are friends or acquaintances who have unexpectedly
met on the street. Segal often used family and friends as models. In Chance
Meeting, the woman wearing high heels is the artist’s daughter, Rena Segal.
This plaster sculpture contains details captured by the casting process,
including folds in the clothing and even top-stitching on seams.
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February, 2012
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Gift of Carroll Janis and Donna Seldin Janis in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art, 2008.59.A-G
Gallery L4 – Minimalism
Frank Stella
American, born 1936
Moultonville III, 1965–1966
Enamel on canvas
Frank Stella has stated that a picture is “a flat surface with paint on it—
nothing more.” His rejection of pictorial imagery and expressive gestures
is reflected in the flatness of the paint and the toned down colors of
Moultonville III. He broke rectangles into sections and reassembled them
into irregular geometric shapes. The title of the painting, Moultonville, is
simply a title—it is not connected to the painting’s content or meaning.
Gift of the Friends of Art, F67-13
Donald Judd
American, 1928-1994
Large Stack, 1968
Stainless steel and amber Plexiglas
Donald Judd is internationally recognized as one of the most important
innovators of minimal art. Minimalist sculpture is characterized by its reduced
number and variety of forms and by its elimination of expressive, artistic emotion.
Large Stack is made up of units whose rational, geometric simplicity and systematic
spatial relationships make them indistinguishable from each other. Judd uses
industrial materials, in this case prefabricated stainless steel and Plexiglas sheets, as
a conscious rejection of craftsmanship. There are 32 versions of Judd’s stacks,
representing his deliberate attempt to demystify the work of art as a unique, precious object.
Gift of the Friends of Art F76-41
Jennifer Bartlett
American, b.1941
Fifteen Plate Piece, 1973
15 units, enamel and silkscreen inks on steel
Jennifer Bartlett's Fifteen Plate Piece is an example of her early interest in
Minimalist and Conceptual art practice. Bartlett used one-foot-square steel
plates and Testors quick-drying and easy-to-apply hobby store paint. Rather
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than mixing colors, she used color directly, limiting her palette to red, yellow and blue, as well as
green, black and white.
Bartlett's approach to Fifteen Plate Piece was methodical. She began with steel plates commercially
coated with baked-on white enamel and overprinted with a silkscreened grid of lines. Within the
grid, she painted tiny dots to create horizontal, vertical and diagonal lines, which created
intersections. Using the grid of lines as her guide, Bartlett laboriously applied the enamel within the
small squares as she explored the rationality of structural systems.
Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation – Commerce
Bank, Trustee, 2005.25.A-O
Clytie Alexander
American, born 1940
Diaphan 15, Orange Yellow/Orange, 2006
Acrylic on aluminum
Hear the drumbeats of Indian classical music. Imagine the patterned walls of
Muslim architecture. Feel the heat of California’s Mojave Desert and the
coolness of engineered systems. These are the artist’s experiences that
influenced this work. Painted on a rectangular aluminum panel perforated by a
dense grid of drill-pressed holes, Diaphan 15 is hung several inches from the
wall. Light passing through the holes bounces off the wall and reflects the
panel’s vivid orange hue. Diaphan 15 beautifully parallels Donald Judd’s Large Stack (this gallery) and
Luis Tomasello’s Chromoplastic Mural (Gallery Walk).
Gift of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York; Hassam, Speicher, Betts and Symons
Funds, 2007; 2007.36
Christo Javacheff
American, b.1935
Wrapped Walk Ways: Project for the Jacob L.
Loose Park, Kansas City, Missouri, 1978
Drawing, printed map, graphite, bic pen, and nylon
cloth
Wrapped Walk Ways was sponsored by the
Contemporary Art Society and installed by the artist and a team of dedicated Kansas Citians for a
period of two weeks in October 1978 in Jacob L. Loose Memorial Park. The project used 136,268
square feet of luminous saffron-colored nylon fabric to cover 104,836 square feet of pathways. It
changed dramatically the way people experienced the park.
Christo and his collaborator and wife, Jeanne-Claude are known for their vast, conceptually based
environmental projects, such as Running Fence and Valley Curtain. The artists consider social
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interactions to be integral aspects of their projects, as lawyers, ecologists, laborers, and community
leaders must participate with the artists in order to realize the work of art.
Anonymous gift, F79-60/1, 2
Dennis Oppenheim
American, 1938-2011
Time Pocket, 1968
Photo panels and text, in six parts
In Time Pocket, Dennis Oppenheim, a leading figure in
Conceptual art (an art movement in which the idea is more important than the object) presents a
witty commentary on the absurdity of rational systems, specifically time.
Oppenheim calls into question the meaning of time. He began with the idea of the International
Date Line, the line of longitude that divides the globe into eastern and western hemispheres. Then
he transferred a portion of this line to Maine and "drew" it by a diesel-powered skidder on a snowy
field. The line stops at the south shore of a lake and resumes on its north shore, leaving the
unmarked lake to suggest a site untouched by time.
Anonymous gift in honor of Amy Plumb, 2007.37.1-6
Bruce Nauman
American, b. 1941
Setting a Good Corner (Allegory and Metaphor), 1999
Video on DVD
Created by Bruce Nauman, one of the leading Conceptual and
Performance artists of our time, Setting a Good Corner is both a
document of the artist at work and a work of art. Here, Nauman
videotapes himself on his New Mexico ranch as he constructs the
corner from which to stretch a length of fence and hang a gate. The duration of the video (nearly
one hour) is equal to the length of time required to set a good corner. The artist’s concentrated labor
is accompanied by the sounds of distant highway traffic, birdsong, wind and an unexpected visit
from his wife, artist Susan Rothenberg. Using allegory and metaphor, Nauman asks us to consider
whether all work performed by an artist is art.
Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation – Commerce
Bank, Trustee, in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2009.28.1
Dean Fleming
American, born 1933
Lime Line, 1965
Acrylic on canvas
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Lime Line—with its eye-popping colors, dynamic geometry, optical rhythms and spatial
complexity—is a far cry from the cool, reductive, stable structures of Minimalism. Dean Fleming
was part of a New York group called Park Place. They explored pictorial space, the ideas of
Buckminster Fuller (inventor of the geodesic dome), Space Age technology, science fiction,
Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and related concepts of fourth dimensional space-time. Fleming
believed hard-edge abstraction was the language of contemporary culture.
Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through exchange of the gifts of the Eighth Mid-America
Annual Exhibition to the Mid-America Annual Collection, Mrs. A. W. Erickson, Helen Mag Wolcott
and Mr. and Mrs. F. Russell Millin, 2009.33
John Baldessari
American, b. 1931
Violent Space Series: Two Stares Making a Point but
Blocked by a Plane (for Malevich), 1976
Photograph with collage
John Baldessari is a conceptual artist interested in surprise and
paradox. In Violent Space Series: Two Stares Making a Point but
Blocked by a Plane (for Malevich), two men stand on a roof,
staring at a point above the building’s parapet. What they are looking at—the white square or
something hidden behind it—remains a mystery. The tilted square itself refers to Russian artist
Kazimir Malevich, the early modern painter who was one of the progenitors of geometric
abstraction. Baldessari appropriates the white square from Malevich’s most famous painting,
Suprematist Composition: White on White (1916). With his typical spirit of ironic play, Baldessari allows
the square to retain something of Malevich’s embedded spiritual meaning, while also reminding us
that a square is just a square.
Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation – Commerce
Bank, Trustee, in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2009.9
Ad Reinhardt
American, 1913-1967
No. 10, 1959
Oil on canvas
Ad Reinhardt’s mature work, such a No. 10, influenced much of the Minimalist and
Conceptual Art of the 1960s and 1970s.
With its rectangular format composed of perfect squares, No. 10 is part of a series
of paintings devoted to variations on colors of extremely close value. Here he has
used shades of black, taking extreme care not to betray any trace of brushwork and
by association, the artist. Reinhardt aimed to create an art of pure, monochromatic
color and form, purged of emotion, representation and narrative.
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Reinhardt said, “Looking isn’t as simple as it looks. Art teaches people how to see.” Accordingly, the
viewer must spend time with No. 10, allowing the eyes to adjust, in order to perceive the subtle
squares that make up the composition.
Purchase: Nelson Trust through exchange of a gift of Paul Rosenberg, the Renee C. Crowell Trust,
and the Nelson Gallery Foundation 89-17
Dale Eldred
American, 1933–1993
Sun Structures + Time
Incident
Project Drawings for The
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,
1979
Photo-processed mylar, applied
materials
These drawings are part of a set that Dale Eldred made for Sun Structures + Time Incident, his 1979
exhibition at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art that comprised works located inside and outside
the Museum. Facade Mirror Bank consisted of two banks of mirror plates that reflected the sun’s rays
onto the Museum’s north facade to create a shimmering dance of golden light. In Rozzelle Court,
Eldred transformed a space that was then open to the sky into a kind of solar clock. With each
rotation of the Earth, sunlight glided around the court, creating a moving rainbow as it touched
mylar prismatic diffraction tape. Eldred’s work reminds us that light is wondrous and elemental.
Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the Jedel Family Foundation; F81-55/1, F81-55/4
Sylvia Plimack Mangold
American, born 1938
Ruler Reflection, 1977
Acrylic on canvas
In Ruler Reflection, Sylvia Mangold straddles Realism and Minimalism as she
seeks to “fit nature into geometry.” As a realist painter, she seeks to
accurately represent the scene before her. Yet the carefully arranged
symmetrical and spare composition, her orderly repetition of wooden floor
boards and her precise placement of an EXACT ruler reveal her interest in
Minimalism. With exactitude, clarity and firmness of hand, she flawlessly
depicts the space of the room while also creating the illusion of deeper space. Minimalism is
famously reflexive, referring only to itself. Ruler Reflection works in much the same way.
Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation—Commerce
Bank, Trustee, 2010.43
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William Wegman
American, born 1934
Any News?, 1973
Silver gelatin print
Bob Wondered What the Bathroom Rug
Was Doing in the Kitchen, 1971–1972
Silver gelatin print
William Wegman, famously known for his
photographs of his pet Weimaraner dogs
posing in humorous situations, is associated with Conceptual art. His work is consistently infused
with humor. In Any News? and Bob Wondered What the Bathroom Rug Was Doing in the Kitchen, Wegman
questions the state of contemporary art by parodying Minimal and Conceptual art. He pokes fun at
classic Minimalist forms—a white rectangle and oval—by representing them as a newspaper and
bathroom rug. With characteristic wit and irony, Wegman asks us to consider whether these ordinary
household objects are as worthy of contemplation as a white painting.
Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation—
Commerce Bank, Trustee, in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins Museum
of Art, 2009.21.1, 2009.21.2
Louise Nevelson
American, born Russia, 1899-1988
End of Day-Nightscape IV, 1973
Painted wood
Louise Nevelson created monumental sculptures from found,
wooden objects such as furniture, crates and discarded
architectural ornamentation. A self-proclaimed “architect of shadows,” Nevelson gave her
architectonic arrangements a mysterious and theatrical quality by painting them a uniform matte
black, explaining that, to her eye, black was “visually weightless.”
Nevelson did not achieve critical acclaim until the 1950s, when she was included in an exhibition at
the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Prior to that time, she experienced prejudice characterized
by a comment made by a critic in 1941: “We learned that the artist is a woman in time to check our
enthusiasm. Had it been otherwise, we might have hailed these sculptural expressions as by surely a
great figure among moderns.”
Gift of the Friends of Art F74-30
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Harry Bertoia
American, 1915-1978, b. Italy
Side Chair: Model 420, designed 1952, manufactured 1961
Steel, plastic-coated wire mesh and Naugahyde
Harry Bertoia
American, 1915-1978, b. Italy
Child’s Chair: Model 426-2, designed 1952, manufactured 1961
Steel, plastic-coated wire mesh and Naugahyde
The human body and a plastic-coated wire dish rack may seem like unlikely
partners, but in the hands of Harry Bertoia, his combination proved to be
one of the most successful chair designs of all the twentieth century. Bertoia,
who worked primarily as a sculptor, delighted in bending metal rods into a
form that cradled the human body, utilized industrial technology, and
minimized expense through economical materials and mass production.
Having solved the chairs’ function requirements, Bertoia reflected, “…when you get right down to
it, the chairs are studies in space, form, and metal…If you will look at them, you will find that they
are mostly made of air, just like sculpture. Space passes right through them.” The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art purchased the chairs in the 1960s for office and classroom use from Knoll
International, who continues to manufacture them.
Transferred from the Education and Operations Divisions, 2006.16.1.A,B
Nam June Paik
Korean, 1932-2006
Watching Buddha, 1979
Metal Buddha statue, acrylic platform, vintage television set box,
inserted more modern television, and video camera
Composer, philosopher, conceptual artists and performer Nam
June Paik is considered the father of video art. He discovered the
artistic possibilities of video when he began working with a Sony
Portapak in 1965. In Watching Buddha, Paik created a closed-circuit
system by linking input from the video camera to output from the TV monitor. The juxtaposition
between the motionless Buddha and his still, yet continually recorded image makes an ironic
statement. It speaks to the Buddha’s meditative, heightened state of mind and the goal of living in
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the present moment, in contrast to the blank stare and mindlessness of the electronic television
monitor. Both meditation and TV viewing alter brainwave activity.
Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation---Commerce Bank,
Trustee, in honor of the 75th anniversary of The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2009.35.A-K
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