Stephen De Staebler (March 24, 1933 – May 13, 2011) was an American
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
,
printmaker
Printmaking is the process of creating work of art, artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand proce ...
, and educator, he was best recognized for his work in
clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4).
Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay par ...
and
bronze
Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...
. Totemic and fragmented in form, De Staebler's figurative
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
s call forth the many contingencies of the human condition, such as resiliency and fragility, growth and decay, earthly boundedness and the possibility for spiritual transcendence. An important figure in the
California Clay Movement
The California Clay Movement (or American Clay Revolution) was a school of ceramic art that emerged in California in the 1950s.
The movement was part of the larger transition in crafts from "designer-craftsman" to "artist-craftsman".
The editor o ...
, he is credited with "sustaining the figurative tradition in post-World War II decades when the relevance and even possibility of embracing the human figure seemed problematic at best."
Early life
De Staebler was born in
Webster Groves, Missouri
Webster Groves is an inner-ring suburb of St. Louis in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The population was 22,995 at the 2010 census.
The city is home to the main campus of Webster University.
Geography
Webster Groves is located at ( ...
, a suburb of
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, and spent his childhood in the nearby suburb of
Kirkwood. From an early age, he was encouraged to develop his artistic interests by his parents, Herbert Conrad De Staebler (1898–1963) and Juliette Hoiles De Staebler (1903–1950).
Many of De Staebler's childhood summers were spent on his maternal grandparents’ 775-acre farm in rural
Shoals, Indiana
Shoals is a town in Center and Halbert townships and the county seat of Martin County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 756 at the 2010 census.
The Shoals community is best known for the Jug Rock, the only free-standing table ro ...
. The lodging, which he shared with his mother and siblings, Herbert Conrad "Hobey" Jr. (1929–2008) and Juliette Jeanne "Jan" (1931–2006), was a rustic cabin built next to the bluffs of the
White River. This early immersion in the natural world shaped the artist's developing aesthetic. De Staebler said, “I fell in love with the river that winds around our family farm in Indiana. It is bordered by a bluff intricately carved by water and wind. It has caves and natural stairways up fissures just wide enough to squeeze through. I sometimes think that my impulses were all formed as a child there.”
When De Staebler was eight, his father met with the director of the
St. Louis Art Museum
The Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) is one of the principal U.S. art museums, with paintings, sculptures, cultural objects, and ancient masterpieces from all corners of the world. Its three-story building stands in Forest Park in St. Louis, M ...
to discuss his son's burgeoning art practice. While at the museum, a bronze copy of the Hellenistic marble sculpture
Laocoön and His Sons
The statue of ''Laocoön and His Sons'', also called the Laocoön Group ( it, Gruppo del Laocoonte), has been one of the most famous ancient sculptures ever since it was excavated in Rome in 1506 and placed on public display in the Vatican Museums ...
made an indelible impression on the young artist's psyche. He subsequently signed up for painting lessons with Warren "Gus" Ludwig, an art professor of
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
, and later took a private clay modeling class with Amanda Hawkins at
John Burroughs School
John Burroughs School (JBS) is a private, non-sectarian college-preparatory school with 631 students in grades 7– 12. Its 49-acre () campus is located in Ladue, Missouri (US), a suburb of St. Louis. Founded in 1923, it is named for U.S. natur ...
, a St. Louis prep school.
Education
De Staebler matriculated at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...
in 1950, where he studied archeology, art history and religion. Joe Brown, a former professional boxer recognized for his sculptures of sports figures, served as De Staebler's mentor during this stage of his education. Following his freshman year, De Staebler attended summer session at
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College was a private liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The college was ideologically organized around John Dewey's educational ...
in Black Mountain, North Carolina, where he studied with the social realist
Ben Shahn
Ben Shahn (September 12, 1898 – March 14, 1969) was an American artist. He is best known for his works of social realism, his left-wing political views, and his series of lectures published as ''The Shape of Content''.
Biography
Shahn was born ...
. Other guest faculty at this time included
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American Abstract Expressionism, abstract expressionist Painting, painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of th ...
and
David Tudor
David Eugene Tudor (January 20, 1926 – August 13, 1996) was an American pianist and composer of experimental music.
Life and career
Tudor was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano with Irma Wolpe and composition with Stefan ...
.
In 1952, De Staebler traveled to Europe aboard the Greek freighter “The Atlantic Beacon.” Once in Europe, he visited cities across Italy (Genoa, Pisa, Sienna, Rome, Assisi, Padua, Venice, Ravenna, Florence, Milan), Switzerland (Berne and Basel), France (Paris, Chartres) and England (London) where he was exposed to canonical works of art and architecture, including
Chartres Cathedral
Chartres Cathedral, also known as the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres (french: Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Chartres), is a Roman Catholic church in Chartres, France, about southwest of Paris, and is the seat of the Bishop of Chartres. Mostly con ...
and iconic sculptures such as the
Belvedere Torso
__NOTOC__
The Belvedere Torso is a tall fragmentary marble statue of a male nude, known to be in Rome from the 1430s, and signed prominently on the front of the base by "Apollonios, son of Nestor, Athenian", who is unmentioned in ancient litera ...
in the Vatican Museums in Rome,
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), known as Michelangelo (), was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was insp ...
's unfinished Captives at the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence, the
Rondanini Pietà
The ''Rondanini Pietà'' is a marble sculpture that Michelangelo worked on from 1552 until the last days of his life, in 1564. Several sources indicate that there were actually three versions, with this one being the last. The name Rondanini ref ...
at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, the
Winged Victory of Samothrace
The ''Winged Victory of Samothrace'', or the ''Nike of Samothrace'', is a votive monument originally found on the island of Samothrace, north of the Aegean Sea. It is a masterpiece of Greek sculpture from the Hellenistic era, dating from the beg ...
at the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
in Paris, and the Three Goddesses from the Parthenon at the
British Museum
The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
in London. Two years after this cultural pilgrimage, De Staebler graduated from Princeton magna cum laude with a degree in Religious Studies. His senior thesis, “
St. Francis of Assisi
Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a mystic Italian Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most venerated figures in Christianit ...
and His Imitation of Christ,” explored the life and work of the much venerated founder of the Franciscan Order.
In his obituary for the artist, art critic Kenneth Baker writes: “
e Staebler’sacademic study of religion at Princeton University gave him a philosophical grounding in the existentialist perspective on life to which he was temperamentally inclined. ‘We are all wounded survivors,’ he told an interviewer recently, ‘alive but devastated selves, fragmented, isolated – the condition of modern man. Art tries to restructure reality so that we can live with the suffering’ ".
At the conclusion of his undergraduate studies, De Staebler was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to Italy to study the connections between
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
`s regime and the
Vatican
Vatican may refer to:
Vatican City, the city-state ruled by the pope in Rome, including St. Peter's Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museum
The Holy See
* The Holy See, the governing body of the Catholic Church and sovereign entity recognized ...
. He ultimately declined the award and instead volunteered for United States Army, where he was trained in
Teletype
A teleprinter (teletypewriter, teletype or TTY) is an electromechanical device that can be used to send and receive typed messages through various communications channels, in both point-to-point and point-to-multipoint configurations. Initia ...
at stations in
Hof an der Saale
Hof () is a town on the banks of the Saale in the northeastern corner of the Germany, German state of Bavaria, in the Franconian region, at the Czech Republic, Czech border and the forested Fichtelgebirge and Frankenwald upland regions.
The town h ...
and
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
, Germany.
In 1957, he attended ceramics classes at
Brooklyn Museum Art School
The Brooklyn Museum Art School was a non-degree-granting professional school that opened at the Brooklyn Museum in Brooklyn, New York in the summer of 1941. The Brooklyn Museum Art School provided instruction for amateur artists as well until Janua ...
, studying under
Ka Kwong Hui. Soon after returning to the States, De Staebler moved to the San Francisco Bay Area with his first wife, Dona Merced Curley, earning a teaching credential in secondary education followed by a master’s degree in fine art from
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...
in 1961. While at Berkeley, De Staebler studied under
Peter Voulkos
Peter Voulkos (born Panagiotis Harry Voulkos; 29 January 1924 – 16 February 2002) was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic ...
, a renowned abstract sculptor who flouted ceramic’s categorization as mere craft, elevating it to the realm of the fine arts. Voulkos’ emphasis on clay's organic properties and expressive potential deeply influenced De Staebler and reactivated his childhood affinity for nature.
Materials
Ceramic
De Staebler's ceramic sculptures harness the inherent qualities of clay, his primary medium during the earlier years of his career, to create raw, fragmented indexes of the body, the landscape and even the landscape as body. The equally organic and preternatural qualities of his forms evoke the tenuous relationships between earthly monumentality and spiritual transcendence, fragmentation and wholeness, and fragility and strength. This tendency for slippage serves a productive purpose, allowing the works to inhabit the discursive space between more prescriptive categories. ''Seated Figure with Yellow Flame'', in the collection of the
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...
is a typical example of his anthropomorphic works.
Donald Kuspit observes how De Stabeler's art can be seen as:
“an attempt to strip the human figure down to its most elemental, ‘almost simplistic,’ terms, revealing it in all its archaic bodiliness. He wants to disinter it from its modernity – the sense of its purely functional significance, of its ideal existence as that of a happy machine – and recover a sense of its flesh as morbidly immediate if also cosmic in import, linked to the strange tumult of raw matter in formation.” He goes on to describe how De Staebler seeks “to create a modern religious art, utilizing archaic forms for an ‘archaic’ purpose: the articulation and remediation of suffering. This generates the illusion of release from time and space we call ‘eternity.’ De Staebler's archaic figure symbolizes the process that leads to the eternal effect – that uncovers the eternal presentness of the primitively memorable – and the effect itself. It is about the impacted sublimity of our feelings for those we cherish, most of all, for ourselves.”
Rejecting traditional glazes for their tendency to impede the effects of the clay's materiality, De Staebler instead produced pigmentation by first working colored, powdered metal oxides directly into the clay matrix. After firing, the resulting ceramic exhibited subtle, muted hues that heighten the geologic properties of the clay’s origins.
Bronze
In the late 1970s, De Staebler turned to bronze after an injury temporarily curtailed his ability to create large-scale, ceramic figure columns. His interest in such a classical art historical medium might strike as counterintuitive, however De Staebler adapted the casting process to reflect his more deconstructed, liberated approach to art-making.
In a 1995 interview, De Stabeler explained how “working with the figure on its sculptural ground is like the figure/ground problem in painting, the relationship of the figure or object to the space around it
when I shifted from clay to bronze, I learned quickly that the reason I needed bronze was to separate the figure even further from the ground and let it stand on its own form, which isn’t possible in clay. Bronze offers this great freedom to cantilever masses.”
Rather than being restricted to making bottom-heavy figures, as was often required by clay, bronze allowed De Staebler to create more gravity-defying sculptures that, with their gracefully attenuated legs, appear to exist on the cusp of collapse. While wing-like shapes were not novel to De Staebler's art, this new material precipitated a greater, more involved investigation of wings and their various symbolic manifestations within the realms of mythology, religion, the animal kingdom and nature. Notable winged figures include ''Winged Woman Walking'' (1987); ''Winged Victory'' at the Moores Opera House in the University of Houston; and ''Three Figures'', City Center, Oakland, amongst others.
The Boneyard
De Staebler's later ceramic works use discarded bits of fired clay scouted from the “boneyard,” a repository behind his studio that had been accumulating such ephemera for over four decades. The archaeological quality of piecing together recovered fragments to create new forms – aggregated through irreducible – resonates with the artist's own interest in the intersection of mortality and transcendence. Regarding this process of “spontaneous archeology,” De Staebler said that “you take fragments that speak to one another and bring them into some kind of field that is more than the sum of its parts.”
Teaching
After pursuing his graduate studies at Berkeley, De Staebler briefly taught at
San Francisco State University
San Francisco State University (commonly referred to as San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a public research university in San Francisco. As part of the 23-campus California State University system, the university offers 118 different b ...
before accepting a teaching position at the
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...
(1961 to 1967). In 1967, De Staebler returned to S.F. State where he taught until his retirement in 1990. During his tenure he worked with such notable colleagues as Peter Vandenberg,
John Gutmann,
Robert Bechtle
Robert Alan Bechtle (May 14, 1932 – September 24, 2020) was an American Painting, painter, printmaker, and educator. He lived nearly all his life in the San Francisco Bay Area and whose art was centered on scenes from everyday local life. His pa ...
, Richard McClean, Leonard Hunter, and Neal White.
In 1968, De Staebler participated in various “Happenings” around campus and conducted classes off-site, to protect students from police squads that had been stationed on campus during anti-Vietnam War demonstrations.
Commissions
In 1963, De Staebler was commissioned to create ''Moab'' I for Prudential Savings and Loan in Salt Lake City, Utah, now in the collection of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts. Five years later, in 1968, De Staebler completed an important commission for the Holy Spirit Chapel, Newman Hall (on U.C. Berkeley's campus) for which he was tasked with creating the altar, tabernacle, crucifix, lectern and celebrant's chair. Subsequent commissions included:
*
U.C. Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...
Art Museum, 1970
*
Bay Area Rapid Transit
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) is a rapid transit system serving the San Francisco Bay Area in California. BART serves 50 stations along six routes on of rapid transit lines, including a spur line in eastern Contra Costa County which uses ...
,
Concord Station, 1972
* San Francisco
Embarcadero Station
Embarcadero station is a combined BART and Muni Metro rapid transit station in the Market Street subway. Located under Market Street between Drumm Street and Beale Street near The Embarcadero, it serves the Financial District neighborhood and s ...
, 1977
*
San Francisco Arts Commission
The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) is the City agency that champions the arts as essential to daily life by investing in a vibrant arts community, enlivening the urban environment and shaping innovative cultural policy in San Francisco, Cali ...
,
Moscone Parking Garage, 1985–86
*
Iowa State University
Iowa State University of Science and Technology (Iowa State University, Iowa State, or ISU) is a public land-grant research university in Ames, Iowa. Founded in 1858 as the Iowa Agricultural College and Model Farm, Iowa State became one of the n ...
, Ames, 1986
* Old St. Louis Post Office, Missouri, 1985–87
* New Harmony Inn and Convention Center, New Harmony, Indiana, 1986–98
* Geary-Market Investment Company, San Francisco, 1989
* Portman Building,
Embarcadero Center
Embarcadero Center is a commercial complex of five office towers, two hotels, a shopping center with more than 125 stores, bars, and restaurants, and a fitness center on three levels located in San Francisco, California. There is an outdoor ice sk ...
, San Francisco, 1990
*
San Jose Convention Center, 1993
*
Graduate Theological Union
The Graduate Theological Union (GTU) is a consortium of eight private independent American theological schools and eleven centers and affiliates. Seven of the theological schools are located in Berkeley, California. The GTU was founded in 1962 ...
, U.C. Berkeley, 1993
* City Center Garage/Amphitheater, Oakland, 1993
*
Chiron Corporation
Chiron Corporation ( ) was an American multinational biotechnology firm founded in 1981, based in Emeryville, California, that was acquired by Novartis on April 20, 2006. It had offices and facilities in eighteen countries on five continents. C ...
, Emeryville, 1998
Awards
De Staebler's honors and awards include two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, 1979 and 1981; Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, 1983; American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Art, 1989; the Nobukata-Shikanai Special Prize and 4th Rodin Grand Prize Exhibition, Utsukushi-ga-hari Open Air Museum, Japan, 1992; and
American Craft Council
The American Craft Council (ACC) is a national non-profit organization that champions craft based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Founded in 1943 by Aileen Osborn Webb, the council hosts national craft shows and conferences, publishes a quarterly maga ...
Fellow, 1994.
Death and legacy
In 2011, De Staebler died of complications from cancer in
Berkeley, California
Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...
, at the age of 78.
2012 Retrospective
From January 14 - April 22, 2012, the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...
presented the first major retrospective of the artist's work at
M. H. de Young Memorial Museum
( ; ; pl. ; ; 1512, from Middle French , literally "my lord") is an honorific title that was used to refer to or address the eldest living brother of the king in the French royal court. It has now become the customary French title of resp ...
. Entitled “Matter + Spirit: Stephen De Staebler,” the exhibition was accompanied by a monograph, "Matter + Spirit: Stephen De Staebler", which included essays by Timothy Anglin Burgard ("Stephen De Staebler: Humanist Sculptor in an Existentialist Age"), Rick Newby, and Dore Ashton, as well as a chronology of the artist's life.
Collections
The
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director from ...
, the
Crocker Art Museum
The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States, located in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1885, the museum holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating f ...
(Sacramento, California), the
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, is the largest public arts institution in the city of San Francisco. The permanent collection of the ...
, the
Honolulu Museum of Art
The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single col ...
, the
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...
, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
(New York), the Montalvo Arts Center (Saratoga, California,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
, the
New Orleans Museum of Art
The New Orleans Museum of Art (or NOMA) is the oldest fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans. It is situated within City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, and near the terminus of the ...
, the
Oakland Museum of California
The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Cali ...
, the
Philbrook Museum of Art
Philbrook Museum of Art is an art museum with expansive formal gardens located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The museum, which opened in 1939, is located in a former 1920s villa, "Villa Philbrook", the home of Oklahoma oil pioneer Waite Phillips and his ...
(Tulsa, Oklahoma), the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...
, the
San Jose Museum of Art
The San José Museum of Art (SJMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum in downtown San Jose, downtown San Jose, California, United States. Founded in 1969, the museum holds a permanent collection with an emphasis on West Coast of the United Sta ...
(San Jose, California), the
Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...
(Washington DC), and the
Udinotti Museum of Figurative Art
The Udinotti Museum of Figurative Art is a non-profit 501(c)3 museum located in Paradise Valley, Arizona. The museum was founded by sculptor, painter, printmaker, poet, and gallery owner Agnese Udinotti in 2007. The collection focuses on figurat ...
(Paradise Valley, Arizona) are among the public collections holding work by De Staebler.
References
Sources
* Adams, Doug, ''Transcendence with the Human Body in Art:
George Segal
George Segal Jr. (February 13, 1934 – March 23, 2021) was an American actor. He became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles. After first rising to prominence with roles in acclaimed films such as ''Ship o ...
, Stephen De Staebler,
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...
, and
Christo
Christo Vladimirov Javacheff (1935–2020) and Jeanne-Claude Denat de Guillebon (1935–2009), known as Christo and Jeanne-Claude, were artists noted for their large-scale, site-specific art, site-specific environmental art, environmental art i ...
'', New York, Crossroad, 1991.
* Burgard, Timothy Anglin, ed., ''Matter + Spirit: Stephen De Staebler'', San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012 (forthcoming).
* De Staebler, Stephen, ''Stephen De Staebler, Sculpture'', Oakland, CA, Oakland Museum, 1974.
* De Staebler, Stephen, ''Stephen De Staebler, The Figure'', San Francisco, Chronicle Books, 1987.
* Roby, Diane
Internationally Acclaimed Sculptor Stephen De Staebler Has Died at Age 78 Press release retrieved on prweb.com on 20 May 2011.
{{DEFAULTSORT:De Staebler, Stephen
American ceramists
20th-century American sculptors
American printmakers
Modern sculptors
1933 births
2011 deaths
People from Webster Groves, Missouri
People from Kirkwood, Missouri
People from Martin County, Indiana
Brooklyn Museum Art School alumni
Black Mountain College alumni
San Francisco State University faculty
San Francisco Art Institute faculty
Princeton University alumni
University of California, Berkeley alumni
People from Berkeley, California
21st-century American sculptors