Robert Hudson: Recent Sculpture and Drawings

Brian Gross Fine Art is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition by the legendary Bay Area artist, Robert Hudson, with a reception for the artist on Saturday, November 7, 2015 from 4-6 pm. Recent Sculpture and Drawings will include the monumental steel sculpture, Frame of Mind, 2012/2015, along with six smaller sculptures and a selection of drawings. In his newest body of work, Robert Hudson continues the exploration of form, void, and illusion that has defined his career from the beginning. Robert Hudson: Recent Sculpture and Drawings will be on view through January 2, 2016.

A leading figure in West Coast sculpture for the last 50 years, Robert Hudson combines welded steel, found objects, and brightly painted surfaces to create complex forms that dazzle and confound the eye. Graham Beal, in his essay, Welded Irony: The Sculpture of Robert Hudson, for the artist’s 1985 retrospective at SFMOMA, wrote, “Each work asserts, somehow, the pleasure of forms, objects, textures, colors, and, by implication, the glory of the many varied things around us.” Thirty years later, Hudson’s sculptures continue to boldly deploy this aesthetic and attitude.

The monumental, tour-de-force work, Frame of Mind, 2012/2015, contains a level of density of form and abstraction that has largely appeared in the last decade of the artist’s work. Welded together from pieces of steel, stainless steel, and enameled cast iron elements, the contained visual energy of this massive piece suggests the explosion of its internal mass beyond the geometric frame elements that struggle to contain its form. In addition to the colors found in the enamel of the cast iron elements, Hudson has added his trademark of bright, primary colors to many areas of the work. In doing so, the artist simultaneously highlights the areas the paint is applied to while also visually dissolving the three-dimensional forms so that they continually interchange between two- and three-dimensions within the viewer’s perception. This delicate balance of movement and containment, and of form, void, and dissolution has been a trademark of Hudson’s work from the start of his career.

Robert Hudson grew up in Richland, Washington, and received his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1963. Recognized for his talent while still a graduate student, Hudson, along with his contemporaries, Robert Arneson, Roy De Forest, William T. Wiley, and others, was included in Peter Selz’ historic exhibition, FUNK, at the Berkeley Art Museum in 1967. He has taught at art schools and universities, including the San Francisco Art Institute, University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Davis, and California College of Arts and Crafts.

Hudson’s polychrome steel sculptures, ceramic sculptures, and paintings are in major museums and collections throughout the United States and Europe, including The Museum of Modern Art, NYC; Whitney Museum of American Art; SFMOMA; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Yale University Art Gallery; Albright- Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, N.Y.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Honolulu Museum of Art; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

In 2014, Robert Hudson was awarded the prestigious Lee Krasner Award in recognition of his lifetime of artistic achievement.

For more information or visuals, please contact: Greg Flood, Assistant Director, at (415) 788-1050 or [email protected].

Brian Gross Fine Art
248 Utah Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 788-1050
Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday 11-6 pm
[email protected]
www.briangrossfineart.com