Robert arneson art style

Artist

born Benicia, CA 1930-died Benicia, CA 1992

Biography

Feeling Pushed captures Robert Arneson at an especially stressful moment in his life. Two years earlier, he had been diagnosed with cancer, possibly caused by the chemicals contained in his art materials. He underwent surgery and was required to return to the hospital numerous times. Despite this serious threat to his health, Arneson injects humor into his self-portrait, even vulgarity. His face seems to be pushed up against a piece of transparent glass that flattens his nose into a piggish snout, while his wild hair and wrinkled features expresss the tension and anxiety that characterize his state of mind. The artist appears like a specimen prepared for a microscopic examination. Areneson frequently turned to self-portraiture as a means to examine his relationship with the world, expressing serious thought and difficult emoti

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By Mike Sintetos

His instantly recognizable Egghead sculptures dot the campus. But the man behind the art is known for much more than a few bald heads.

Robert Arneson, a UC Davis faculty member for four decades, was also at the forefront of a movement that took ceramic art in a new direction.

When Arneson came to campus in 1962, ceramic art forms were mainly "art" versions of traditional pottery shapes — pots, vases, plates and tiles.

But starting in the 1960s, Arneson and several other California artists abandoned the manufacture of functional wares in favor of using everyday objects to make confrontational — and to some, offensive — statements. The new movement was dubbed "Funk Art," and Arneson is considered the "father of the ceramic Funk movement."

Arneson, who died in 1992 after a long battle with cancer, used toilets, typewriters, soda bottles and other common objects in his work, which included both ceramic sculptures and drawings. Autobiography also played an important role in Arneson's art. He appeared in many of his own pieces — as a chef, a man

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Robert Arneson

American sculptor and professor (1930–1992)

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

Early life and education

Robert Carston Arneson was born on September 4, 1930, 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 degree and went on to receive an MFA from Mills College in Oakland, California, in 1958.^[3][4] At Mills College he studied under Antonio Prieto.^[4]

Career

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