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Augusta Stylianou Gallery 
Dale Eldred (b. Minneapolis, Minnesota 1933; d. Kansas City, Missouri 1993) was an internationally acclaimed sculptor renowned for large-scale sculptures[1] that emphasized both natural and generated light.[2] Dale Eldred 1985 'Seven Views of the Grand Canyon', Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri
The grandson of Finnish immigrant builders, Eldred was raised in Minnesota. Eldred moved to Kansas City in 1959, fresh out of the University of Michigan. Within a year, he was named chairman of the sculpture department of Kansas City Art Institute. Eldred possessed an imposing physical presence and was a college football fullback. He was known to be resilient in the face of challenge, such as the fire in 1991 that destroyed a studio that contained his library and many valuable artworks. Eldred chaired the sculpture department at KCAI for 33 years, exerting a powerful influence on thousands of students, including: Shawn Brixey, Ming Fay, Michael Rees, John E. Buck, and the collaborative couple, (the late) Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler who met at KCAI. He also was the artistic director of Biosphere II, and was a fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Center for Advanced Visual Studies.
Dale Eldred 'Solar Time Plane' 1986, Broward County Main Library, Fort Lauderdale, Florida Dale Eldred was a victim of the "500-year" flood in the summer of 1993, when the Missouri River inundated parts of Kansas City. He was killed in a fall trying to rescue equipment in his West Bottoms-neighborhood studio. Sculpture Eldred's early sculptures were large works in clay. Influenced by the monumental steel sculptures of David Smith and Alexander Calder, he began to work in steel, wood and other materials, creating large sculptures and environments. Examples of these include a sculpture composed of a pair of large cantilevered slabs of wood and steel, placed near the entrance of the Kansas City Art Institute; and a park in northern Kansas City, Missouri housing a large stone and lumber environment. His work of this time was reviewed favorably by critic and artist Donald Judd. Eldred was commissioned to redesign downtown Kansas City, Kansas. His challenging modernist design included futuristic fountains, irregular streets, and steel curbs. Received poorly, its unpopularity led the city to modify much of his work, but aspects still exist today.
Vision Lens: Light and Future, Dale Eldred, Eldred expressed his desire to reveal natural phenomena. He created a towering sculpture in a Kansas City park that sprayed water in order to create prismatic light refractions. His emphasis increasingly focused on light; he used mirrors, pure pigments, gas flames, fluorescent paint, refraction tape, glass, neon tubes and other materials to create light effects. "I want the sculptures to remind us all," he said, "that our lives are inextricably linked to light, and that our universe is in constant motion."[1] In collaboration with choreographer Todd Bolender, he created the set and costumes for "Voyager," a ballet performed by the State Ballet of Missouri. He collaborated with other highly regarded artists and musicians, including composer Phillip Glass. Commissions, Museums and Private Collections United States Arizona * Time/Light Fusion, 1990, Scottsdale Center for the Arts, Scottsdale Florida * Solar Time Plane, 1984, Broward County Main Library, Fort Lauderdale Illinois * Urban Time and Light Field, 1985, Cermak Plaza Shopping Center, Berwyn Iowa * Landscape Piece #1, 1965, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines Kansas * Salina Piece, 1969, University of Kansas, Lawrence Michigan * Untitled, 1973, Grand Valley State University, Allendale Minnesota * Mankota Piece, 1968, Riverfront Park, Mankota Missouri * Heritage Fountain, 1977, Blue Valley Park, Kansas City North Carolina * Time + Light Tower, 1991, Capital Blvd & Fairview Dr, Raleigh Ohio * Light Path Crossing, 1987, Case Western University, Cleveland Oklahoma * Tulsa Time and Light Continuum, 1983, Convention Center, Tulsa Oregon * Levitated Light, 1987, Portland State University, School of Business Administration, Portland Tennessee * Airport Sun Project, 1989, Nashville International Airport, Nashville Utah * Light and Time Incident, 1995, Utah State University, Science / Technology Library, Logan Virginia * Light Garden, 1988, Virginia Beach Wisconsin * Appleton Aurora, 1989, Appleton Center, Appleton
* City Art Museum, Helsinki (Finland)
He received numerous awards and honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and grants from the Ford Foundation, the American Institute of Architects and the National Endowment of the Arts. Publications Ralph Coe. Dale Eldred: Sculpture Into Environment, ISBN 0700601597, Regents Press Kansas, 1978. References 1. ^ Roberta Lord, The Sky Above Dale Eldred, http://www.cultureport.com/cultureport/artists/eldred/index.html Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; ==--==--==
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