Richard Artschwager Floating Top Desk

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Richard Artschwager (NY 1923-2013). A fine bench-made desk made of walnut, circa the 1950s/1960s. This 6-drawer piece is an iconic … Read more Richard Artschwager (NY 1923-2013). A fine bench-made desk made of walnut, circa the 1950s/1960s. This 6-drawer piece is an iconic mid-century furniture design that's designated as one of 9 pieces. The work is not visibly signed.

Provenance: Property of a private corporate collection. This desk is from a series Artschwager made in the 1950's-1960's. We have handled other desks in this series and guaranty the authenticity of the desk.

Artschwager was born in 1923 in Washington, DC, and died in 2013 in Albany, New York. After receiving a BA in 1948 from Cornell University, New York, he studied under Amédée Ozenfant, one of the pioneers of abstraction. He forged a unique path in art from the early 1950s through the early twenty-first century, making the visual comprehension of space and the everyday objects that occupy it strangely unfamiliar. In the early 1950s Artschwager became involved in cabinetmaking, producing pieces that emphasized functionality and simplicity. After a ruinous workshop fire at the end of the decade, he began making sculptures using leftover industrial materials, then expanded into painting, drawing, site-specific installation, and photo-based work. His minimalist aesthetic and conceptual approach challenge traditional perceptions of art, his pieces playing with perspective by often creating optical illusions by blurring the lines between two and three dimensions. Artschwager's work has been variously described as pop art because of its derivation from utilitarian objects and incorporation of commercial and industrial materials, minimal art because of its geometric forms and solid presence, and as conceptual art because of its cool and cerebral detachment.

Artschwager’s first exhibition took place at the Art Directions Gallery, New York, in 1959, and was followed by the first of many solo exhibitions with Leo Castelli in 1965. Solo exhibitions include Up and Across, Neues Museum, Nuremberg, Germany (2001, traveled to Serpentine Gallery, London); Museum für angewandte Kunst (MAK), Vienna (2002); Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2003, traveled to Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Krefeld, Germany, and Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Munich); Painting Then and Now, Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (2003); Up and Down/Back and Forth, Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin (2003); Hair, Contemporary Art Museum, Saint Louis (2010); Richard Artschwager!, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2012, traveled to Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Haus der Kunst, Munich, and Nouveau Musée National de Monaco); and Punctuating Space: The Prints and Multiples of Richard Artschwager, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York (2015).

Measures: H 28 3/4" x W 60 1/4" x D 24" See less