Date/Time
Date(s) - Sep 11
12:00 am
Location
Pasadena Museum of California Art
Categories
The Pasadena Museum of California Art is proud to present Claire Falkenstein: Beyond Sculpture, the first comprehensive museum exhibition of international artist Claire Falkenstein (1908–1997). Though her enduring reputation rests on her sculpture, this prolific female artist began and ended her career as an inventive painter, and her body of work also includes printmaking, jewelry, glass, films, stage sets for dance, public murals, fountains, and monumental architectural commissions. The retrospective assembles preeminent examples from each media, presenting the full range of one of America’s most experimental, productive, and peripatetic twentieth-century artists.
Although Falkenstein was respected among the bourgeoning post-World-War-II art scene in the United States and Europe, her disregard for the commodification of art coupled with her movement from one international art metropolis to another made her an elusive figure. She spent her early years in San Francisco teaching at Mills College and California School of Fine Arts, where she gained entrée into the prominent artistic circle of Alexander Archipenko, who introduced her to key principles in abstract sculpture. Falkenstein wasintellectually rigorous and relentless in her exploration of media, techniques, and processes, and her art was often ahead of her time. Her three-dimensional work broke from traditional boundaries as early as the late-1930s. In addition, some of her early paintings took the form of three-dimensional shapes years before these were common; her early-World-War-II murals were exceptionally modern for the time; and her jewelry, in its form and materials, was extremely venturesome.
Sunday, April 17-Sunday, September 11.
