John McCracken (artist)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

John Harvey McCracken (December 9, 1934April 8, 2011) was a
minimalist In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...
artist. He lived and worked in Los Angeles,
Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...
, and New York.


Education/teaching

After graduating from high school, McCracken served in the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
for four years before enrolling in the
California College of Arts and Crafts California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the mo ...
in Oakland, earning a B.F.A. in 1962 and completing most of the work for an M.F.A. During these years he studied with
Gordon Onslow Ford Gordon Onslow Ford (26 December 1912 – 9 November 2003) was one of the last surviving members of the 1930s Paris surrealist group surrounding André Breton. Born in the English town of Wendover in 1912 to a family of artists, Onslow Ford ...
and
Tony DeLap Tony DeLap (November 4, 1927 – May 29, 2019) was a West Coast artist, known for his abstract sculpture utilizing illusionist techniques and meticulous craftsmanship. As a pioneer of West Coast minimalism and Op Art, DeLap's oeuvre is a te ...
. Taught: *1965–1966:
University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 graduate and pr ...
*1966–1968:
University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...
*1968–1969:
School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...
,
New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
*1971–1972:
Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...
, New York *1972–1973:
University of Nevada, Reno The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a public land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant institution. It was founded on October 12, ...
*1973–1975:
University of Nevada, Las Vegas The University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) is a public land-grant research university in Paradise, Nevada. The campus is about east of the Las Vegas Strip. It was formerly part of the University of Nevada from 1957 to 1969. It includes the S ...
*1975–1976: University of California, Irvine *1975–1985:
College of Creative Studies The College of Creative Studies is the smallest of the three undergraduate colleges at the University of California, Santa Barbara, unique within the University of California system in terms of structure and philosophy. Its small size, studen ...
,
University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduate ...


Work

Internationally recognized, John McCracken commenced developing his earliest sculptural work while in grad school at California College of Arts and Crafts along with Minimalists John Slorp and Peter Schnore, and painters Tom Nuzum, Vincent Perez, and Terry StJohn, 1964, 1965. Equally well known Dennis Oppenheim, enrolled in the M.F.A. program at nearby Stanford, was a frequent visitor to this more vibrant graduate program. While experimenting with increasingly three-dimensional canvases, McCracken began to produce art objects made with industrial techniques and materials, plywood, sprayed lacquer, pigmented resin, creating the ever more minimalistic works featuring highly-reflective, smooth surfaces. He applied techniques akin to those used in
surfboard A surfboard is a narrow plank used in surfing. Surfboards are relatively light, but are strong enough to support an individual standing on them while riding an ocean wave. They were invented in ancient Hawaii, where they were known as ''papa he'e ...
construction—popular in Southern California. Later McCracken was part of the
Light and Space Light and Space denotes a loosely affiliated art movement related to op art, minimalism and geometric abstraction originating in Southern California in the 1960s and influenced by John McLaughlin (artist), John McLaughlin. It is characterized by ...
movement that includes
James Turrell James Turrell (born May 6, 1943) is an American artist known for his work within the Light and Space movement. Much of Turrell's career has been devoted to a still-unfinished work, ''Roden Crater'', a natural cinder cone crater located outside ...
,
Peter Alexander Peter Alexander may refer to: * Pete Alexander (born Grover Cleveland Alexander; 1887–1950), American baseball player * Peter Alexander (Shakespearean scholar) (1893–1969), professor of English language and literature at the University of Glasgo ...
, Larry Bell, Robert Irwin Noni Grevillea and others. In interviews, however, he usually cited his greatest influences as the hard edge works of the Abstract Expressionist
Barnett Newman Barnett Newman (January 29, 1905 – July 4, 1970) was an American artist. He has been critically regarded as one of the major figures of abstract expressionism, and one of the foremost color field painters. His paintings explore the sense o ...
and Minimalists like
Donald Judd Donald Clarence Judd (June 3, 1928February 12, 1994) was an American artist associated with minimalism (a term he nonetheless stridently disavowed).Tate Modern websit"Tate Modern Past Exhibitions Donald Judd" Retrieved on February 19, 2009. In ...
,
Dan Flavin Dan Flavin (April 1, 1933 – November 29, 1996) was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures. Early life and career Daniel Nicholas Flavin ...
and
Carl Andre Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear and grid format sculptures and for the suspected murder of contemporary and wife, Ana Mendieta. His sculptures range from large public art ...
. Early objects created by John McCracken were derived from company logos such as the Chevron corporation logo. His sculptures deal with the interrelationships existing between the material world and design. In 1966, McCracken generated his signature sculptural form: the plank, a narrow, monochromatic, rectangular board format that leans at an angle against the wall (the site of painting) while simultaneously entering into the three-dimensional realm and physical space of the viewer. He conceived the plank idea in a period when artists across the stylistic spectrum were combining aspects of painting and sculpture in their work and many were experimenting with sleek, impersonal surfaces. As the artist noted, "I see the plank as existing between two worlds, the floor representing the physical world of standing objects, trees, cars, buildings, ndhuman bodies, ... and the wall representing the world of the imagination, illusionist painting space, ndhuman mental space." The sculptures consist of plywood forms coated with fiberglass and layers of polyester resin. While the polished resin surface recalls the aesthetic of 1960s southern California surfboard and Kustom Kar cultures, the title was drawn from advertising slogans in fashion magazines. In addition to the planks, the artist also creates wall pieces and free-standing sculptures in varying geometrical shapes and sizes, ranging from smaller forms on pedestals to large-scale, outdoor structures in the shape of pyramids, ziggurats, tetrahedrons and occasionally crystals. He worked in highly polished stainless steel and bronze and occasionally made work that in effect sliced the planks into thin, repeating elements that leaned against the wall in rows. In McCracken's work, color was also used as "material." Bold solid colors with their highly polished finish reflect the unique California light or mirror the observer in a way that takes the work into another dimension. His palette included bubble-gum pink, lemon yellow, deep sapphire and ebony, usually applied as a monochrome. Sometimes an application of multiple colors marbleizes or runs down the sculpture's surface, like a molten lava flow. McCracken typically makes each resin or lacquer work by hand rather than using industrial fabrication. Each is handmade by McCracken himself, who carefully paints them. The monochrome surfaces are sanded and polished many times to such a degree of reflectiveness that they seem translucent. He also made objects of softly stained wood or, in recent years, highly polished bronze and reflective stainless steel. In 2010, for example, he created various sculptures that are polished to produce such a high degree of reflectivity that they simultaneously activate their surroundings and seem entirely camouflaged. In 1971 to 1972, he made a rarely seen series of paintings based on Hindu and Buddhist mandalas, first shown at Castello di Rivoli in 2011. ''John McCracken: Sketchbook'' was published in 2008 by Santa Fe-based Radius Books. During the 1970s and early 1980s, a period when he devoted his time to teaching at the
University of Nevada The University of Nevada, Reno (Nevada, the University of Nevada, or UNR) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Reno, Nevada. It is the state's flagship public university and primary land grant ...
in Reno and Las Vegas and at the University of California, Santa Barbara, McCracken received relatively little critical attention. A 1985 move to Los Angeles with his wife, artist Gail Barringer, revived his career in terms of newly conceived bodies of work, gallery and museum exhibitions, and recognition by a younger generation of artists, dealers, and curators. McCracken had lived in Santa Fe since 1994.


Exhibitions

McCracken had his first exhibition at the Nicholas Wilder Gallery in Los Angeles in 1965 and his first in New York at the Robert Elkon Gallery in 1966. He then trailed off, with his next show at
Sonnabend Gallery Ileana Sonnabend (née Schapira, October 29, 1914 – October 21, 2007) was a Romanian-American art dealer of 20th-century art. The Sonnabend Gallery opened in Paris in 1962 and was instrumental in making American art of the 1960s known in Europe, ...
in 1992. McCracken's art has been included in every important exhibition of Minimalist sculpture in both the United States and Europe, starting with “
Primary Structures Primary Structures: Younger American and British Sculptors was an exhibition presented by the Jewish Museum in New York City from April 27 to June 12, 1966. The show was a survey of recent work in sculpture by artists from the Northeast United Sta ...
” at the
Jewish Museum A Jewish museum is a museum which focuses upon Jews and may refer seek to explore and share the Jewish experience in a given area. List of Jewish museums Notable Jewish museums include: *Albania ** Solomon Museum, Berat *Australia ** Jewish Muse ...
in 1966 and with "American Sculpture of the Sixties" at the Los Angeles County Museum. A retrospective of McCracken's work was hosted by the
Castello di Rivoli The Castle of Rivoli is a former Residence of the Royal House of Savoy in Rivoli (Metropolitan City of Turin, Italy). It is currently home to the Castello di Rivoli – Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, the museum of contemporary art of Turin. In 199 ...
- Museo d'Arte Contemporanea, Turin in the spring of 2011. Other recent solo exhibitions include Inverleith House at the
Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) is a scientific centre for the study of plants, their diversity and conservation, as well as a popular tourist attraction. Founded in 1670 as a physic garden to grow medicinal plants, today it occupies ...
(2009) and the
Stedelijk Museum The Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (; Municipal Museum Amsterdam), colloquially known as the Stedelijk, is a museum for modern art, contemporary art, and design located in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent (2004). He was honored at
Documenta 12 documenta 12 was the twelfth edition of documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition. It was held between 16 June and 23 September 2007 in Kassel, Germany. The artistic director was Roger M. Buergel in collaboration with Ruth ...
in Kassel in 2007, in which a small survey of his art was woven throughout the larger show.


At auction

His top-ten prices at auction all exceed $200,000, including his high auction mark for an eight-foot-tall ''Black Plank'' from 1972, in polyester resin, fiberglass, and plywood, that sold for £180,000 ($358,637) at
Phillips de Pury & Company Phillips, formerly known as Phillips the Auctioneers (briefly as Phillips de Pury), is a British auction house. It was founded in London in 1796, and has head offices in London and in New York City. It was owned by the Mercury Group, a Russian ...
London in June 2007. More recently, ''Flash'' (2002), a fire-engine-red plank piece in the same media, sold for $290,500 at
Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is ...
New York in November 2010 against an estimate of $120–180,000.


Works in permanent collections

* ''No. 25'', 1964, University Art Museum, University of California, Berkeley * ''Nine Planks V'', 1974,
Laguna Art Museum The Laguna Art Museum (LAM) is a museum located in Laguna Beach, California, on Pacific Coast Highway. LAM exclusively features California art and is the oldest cultural institution in the area. It has been known as the Laguna Beach Art Associati ...
, Laguna Beach * ''Blue Column'', 1967,
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 ...
* ''Plank'', 1976,
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 ...
* ''Don't Tell Me When to Stop'', 1967,
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 ...
* ''Untitled'', 1982,
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 ...
* ''Mykonos'', 1965, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach * ''Plank I'', 1974, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach * ''Pyramid'', Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach * ''Red Cube'', 1971, Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach * ''Untitled'', Newport Harbor Art Museum, Newport Beach * ''Blue Post and Lintel I'', 1965,
Norton Simon Museum The Norton Simon Museum is an art museum located in Pasadena, California, United States. It was previously known as the Pasadena Art Institute and the Pasadena Art Museum and displays numerous sculptures on its grounds. Overview The Norton Sim ...
, Pasadena * ''Le Baron'',
Oakland Museum 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 ...
, Oakland * ''Love in Italian'', 1967,
Oakland Museum 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 ...
, Oakland * ''Nine Planks, IV'', 1974, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla * ''Painting'', 1974, San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla * ''Right Down'', 1967, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco * University Art Museum, University of California, Santa Barbara * Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara * ''Blue Post and Lintel'', 1970,
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 ...
, Honolulu, Hawaii * ''Chimu'', 1965,
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 ...
, Honolulu, Hawaii * ''Yellow Pyramid'', 1965,
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 ...
, Honolulu, Hawaii * ''Plank'', 1980, K & B Corporation, New Orleans, Louisiana * ''The Absolutely Naked Fragrance'', 1967,
Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
, New York, New York * ''Naxos'', 1965,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
, New York, New York * ''Untitled (Pink Box)'', 1970,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
, New York, New York * ''Untitled'', 1969,
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...
, New York, New York * ''Violet Block in Two Parts'', 1966,
Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
, New York, New York * ''Untitled (Grey Plank)'', 1978,
Rhode Island School of Design Museum The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877, and still shares multiple build ...
, Providence, Rhode Island * ''23'', 1964,
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 ...
* Untitled slab painting, resin and fiberglass sculpture, 1981,
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 ...
* ''Green'',
Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...
* ''Mandala V'', 1972,
Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...
* ''You Won't Know Which One Until You've Been to All of Them'', 1967,
Milwaukee Art Museum The Milwaukee Art Museum (MAM) is an art museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its collection contains nearly 25,000 works of art. Location and Visit Located on the lakefront of Lake Michigan, the Milwaukee Art Museum is one of the largest art museu ...
, Milwaukee, Wisconsin * ''Red Plank'', 1969. The
Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...
* ''Black Box #2'', 1971,
Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beve ...
, Toronto, Canada * ''Wing (Aile)'', 1999, French National Art Collection (FNAC) *Gate, 1995, Berardo Museum, Lisbon, Portugal


Bibliography

*
Research Information System - John McCracken
* Busch, Julia M.

(The Art Alliance Press: Philadelphia
Associated University Presses
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
, 1974)


References


External links


''LA Times'' obituary''John McCracken: Sketchbook'' published by Radius Books, Santa Fe, New Mexico ''Minimalism: On Objects and Things''

John McCracken
at
Kadist Art Foundation Kadist is an interdisciplinary contemporary arts organization with an international contemporary art collection. In addition to being a collecting body, Kadist hosts artists residencies and produces exhibitions, publications, and public events. ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mccracken, John 1934 births 2011 deaths Artists from Berkeley, California Artists from Santa Fe, New Mexico California College of the Arts alumni Hunter College faculty Military personnel from California Minimalist artists School of Visual Arts faculty University of California, Irvine faculty University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of California, Santa Barbara faculty University of Nevada, Las Vegas faculty University of Nevada, Reno faculty Sculptors from California Sculptors from New Mexico