Charles Hinman

Optical wall sculptures

1974

Charles Hinman (born 1932) is an American artist renowned for pioneering the use of three-dimensional shaped canvases. Born in Syracuse, New York, Hinman attended Syracuse University, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1955. He initially pursued a career as a professional baseball player before an arm injury led him to focus fully on art. Hinman gained recognition in the mid-1960s for his innovative use of shaped canvases, which explore the interplay between real and illusory space. His works, often characterized by their geometric, sculptural forms, project from the wall and create a dynamic interaction between light, color, and shadow. This fusion of painting and sculpture places him at the forefront of Minimalism and shaped-canvas art movements. His early exhibitions at the Sidney Janis Gallery and his first solo show at Richard Feigen Gallery in 1964 helped establish his reputation. Throughout his career, Hinman’s works have been included in prominent exhibitions and acquired by major institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has also been the recipient of prestigious awards, such as a Guggenheim Fellowship and multiple Pollock-Krasner Foundation grants. In recent years, his works continue to be celebrated for their exploration of dimensionality and form, with exhibitions like "The Shaped Canvas Revisited" in 2014 reaffirming his influence on modern art