Nancy Graves

Nancy Graves (December 23, 1939 – October 21, 1995) was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and sometime-filmmaker known for her focus on natural phenomena like camels or maps of the moon. According to artcyclopedia.com, her works are included in many public collections, including those of the National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the National Gallery of Australia (Canberra), and the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis). She was the first woman to receive a solo retrospective at the Whitney Museum.[1]

Early life and studies

Graves was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Her interest in art, nature, and anthropology was fostered by her father, an accountant at a local museum. After graduating from Vassar College in English Literature, Graves attended Yale University, where she received her bachelor's and master's degrees. After her graduation in 1964, she received a Fulbright Scholarship and studied painting in Paris. Continuing her international travels, she then moved on to Florence. During the rest of her life, she would also travel to New York, Morocco, Germany, and Canada.
Work

Graves's most famous sculpture, Camels, was first displayed in the Whitney Museum of American Art. The sculpture features three separate camels, each made of many materials, among them burlap, wax, figerglass, and animal skin. Each camel is also painted with acrylics and oil colors to appear realistic. The camels are now stored in the National Gallery of Canada, and two later "siblings" reside in the Neue Galerie der Stadt Aachen in Germany.

Graves also created a distinctive body of aerial landscapes, mostly based on maps of the moon and similar sources. Below is a link to an example (VI Maskeyne Da Region of the Moon). Author Margret Dreikausen (1985) writes extensively of Graves's aerial works as part of a broader discussion of the aerial view and its importance in modern and contemporary art.

Some of Graves's other works include:

* Goulimine (film, 1970)
* Izy Boukir (film, 1971)
* VI Maskeyne Da Region of the Moon (lithograph, 1972)[2]
* Fragment (painting, 1977)[3]
* Wheelabout (sculpture, 1985)[4]
* Hindsight (sculpture, 1986)[5]
* Immovable Iconography (sculpture, 1990)[6]
* Footscray (oil on canvas, paint, and sulpture)
* Metaphore & Melanomy, (cast bronze, 1995)[7]

Awards

* Skowhegan Medal for Drawing/Graphics (1980)
* New York Dance and Performance Bessie Award (1986)
* Honorary Degree, Skidmore College (1989)

Death

Nancy Graves made her last works in April 1995 at the Walla Walla Foundry with Saff Tech Arts in Washington state.[7] In May, less than a month later, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died the following October, aged 55.[8]

References

1. ^ Nancy Graves: Biography and Much More from Answers.com
2. ^ VI Maskeyne Da Region of the Moon, Memorial Art Gallery, rochester.edu.
3. ^ Fragment painting, Memorial Art Gallery, rochester.edu.
4. ^ Wheelabout sculpture, themodern.org, Nancy Graves.
5. ^ Hindsight sculpture, Walker Art Center.
6. ^ Immovable Iconography sculpture, Nancy Graves, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art.
7. ^ a b Walla Walla Foundry, Nancy Graves.
8. ^ Biography at the Nancy Graves Foundation

Further reading

* Dreikausen, Margret, "Aerial Perception: The Earth as Seen from Aircraft and Spacecraft and Its Influence on Contemporary Art" (Associated University Presses: Cranbury, New Jersey; London, England; Mississauga, Ontario: 1985) ISBN 0879820403.
* Graves, Nancy Stevenson; E A Carmean; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The Sculpture of Nancy Graves: a catalogue raisonné with essays (New York: Hudson Hills Press in association with the Fort Worth Art Museum: Distributed in the United States … by Rizzoli International, ©1987) ISBN 0933920776; ISBN 0933920784.

External links

* Nancy Graves profile National Gallery of Art
* Nancy Graves profile at Artcyclopedia
* "Nancy Graves: Camels, Bones and Bronze", critical review of one of Graves's exhibitions

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