Lucas Samaras (born 1936) is a Greek-American artist.

Early life and education

Samaras was born in Kastoria, Greece. He studied at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

on a scholarship, where he met

Allan Kaprow Allan Kaprow (August 23, 1927 – April 5, 2006) was an American painter, assemblagist and a pioneer in establishing the concepts of performance art. He helped to develop the "Environment" and " Happening" in the late 1950s and 1960s, as well ...

and

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 ...

Career

Samaras participated in Kaprow's "

Happening A happening is a performance, event, or situation art, usually as performance art. The term was first used by Allan Kaprow during the 1950s to describe a range of art-related events. History Origins Allan Kaprow first coined the term "happen ...

s," and posed for Segal's plaster sculptures. Claes Oldenburg, in whose Happenings he also participated, later referred to Samaras as one of the " New Jersey school," which also included Kaprow, Segal,

George Brecht George Brecht (August 27, 1926 – December 5, 2008), born George Ellis MacDiarmid, was an American conceptual artist and avant-garde composer, as well as a professional chemist who worked as a consultant for companies including Pfizer, Johnson ...

Robert Whitman Robert Whitman (born 1935 in New York City) is an American artist best known for his seminal theater pieces of the early 1960s combining visual and sound images, actors, film, slides, and evocative props in environments of his own making. Since t ...

Robert Watts Robert Watts (born 23 May 1938)Adam Pirani, ''Robert Watts: Secrets of "The Temple of Doom"'', Starlog #94, April 1985, pp 23–26,62. is a British retired film producer who is best known for his involvement with the '' Star Wars'' and ''Indian ...

, Geoffrey Hendricks and

Roy Lichtenstein Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. ...

. Samaras previously worked in painting, sculpture, and

performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

, before beginning work in photography. He subsequently constructed room environments that contained elements from his own personal history. His "Auto-Interviews" were a series of text works that were "self-investigatory" interviews. The primary subject of his photographic work is his own self-image, generally distorted and mutilated. He has worked with multi-media

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an Assemblage (art), assemblage of different forms, thus creat ...

s, and by manipulating the wet dyes in

Polaroid Polaroid may refer to: * Polaroid Corporation, an American company known for its instant film and cameras * Polaroid camera, a brand of instant camera formerly produced by Polaroid Corporation * Polaroid film, instant film, and photographs * Polar ...

photographic film to create what he calls "Photo-Transformations". Samaras represented Greece at the 53rd International Art Exhibition, The

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

(June 7- November 22, 2009) with the multi-installation "PARAXENA" in the Greek Pavilion in the Giardini. Samaras has been the subject of several portraits by

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very l ...

, in media including painting,

daguerreotype Daguerreotype (; french: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process. Invented by Louis Daguerre a ...

, and

tapestry Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven by hand on a loom. Tapestry is weft-faced weaving, in which all the warp threads are hidden in the completed work, unlike most woven textiles, where both the warp and the weft threads ma ...

. Samaras' sculpture '' Stiff Box 12'' has been outside the University of Michigan Museum of Art since 1997.

Art market

Samaras has been represented by

Pace Gallery The Pace Gallery is an American contemporary and modern art gallery with 9 locations worldwide. It was founded in Boston by Arne Glimcher in 1960. His son, Marc Glimcher, is now president and CEO. Pace Gallery operates in New York, London, Hong ...

since 1965.LUCAS SAMARAS: Filthy Artist, Not a Prince.
'' 032c'', December 1, 2009.

References

General references

*Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, editors. ''Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings''. University of California Press, 1996. * Jo Applin, '"Materialized Secrets": Samaras, Hesse and the Small Scale Box', ''Object'', no. 4, 2002

External links