Tom Wesselmann Art

Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) is one of the most iconic, collected, and sexy American Pop artists. Wesselmann arrived in New York City to study at Cooper Union with the goal of becomin...

TOM WESSELMANN 1931-2004 Cincinnati 1931-2004 New York (American) Title: Smoking Cigarette in Ashtray, 2000 Technique: Signed and Dated Liquitex on Bristol Board Size: 23 x 19 cm...

A sculpture by Tom Wesselmann. "Bedroom Brunette with Irises" is a contemporary wall sculpture, oil on cut-out aluminum by Blue Chip, Pop artist Tom Wesselmann. The work is unsigned. This piece was conceived in 1988 and frabricated by Lippincott Sculpture studio in 2004. Tom Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati Ohio on February 23 1931. He attended college from 1945-1951, first at the Hiram College in Ohio and then the University of Cincinnati, where he majored in psychology. He was drafted during the Korean War in 1952, and it was during this time that Wesselmann did his first cartoons. After he was discharged and had finished in degree in psychology, Wesselmann began to study drawing at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. He sold his first cartoon strips to two magazines, 1000 Jokes and True. In 1956, he was accepted to Cooper Union in New York and he continued his studies there. It was while he was studying in New York, specifically on a trip to the MoMA that Wesselmann became inspired by Robert Motherwell and Willem de Kooning. In 1958, a landscape painting trip to Cooper Union’s Green Camp in New Jersey brought him to the realization that he could make his career in painting, rather than cartooning. After graduation, Wesselmann became one of the founding members of the Judson Gallery, along with Marc Ratliff and Jim Dine. Wesselmann also began to teach art at a public school in Brooklyn and later at the High School of Art and Design. In 1961, Wesselmann began the series that would bring him to the attention of the art world, Great American Nude. After a dream concerning the phrase “red, white and blue”, Wesselmann decided to limit himself to a palette of only those colors (including colors like gold and khaki that are associated with patriotic motifs). This series incorporated representational images along the same patriotic theme, including American landscape photographs and portraits of the founding fathers. Wesselmann often collaged these images from magazines and discarded posters which required him to work in a much larger format than he was used to. As his works became larger and larger he approached advertisers directly to acquire billboards. Wesselmann’s first solo show was held in 1961 at Tanager Gallery. In 1962, Richard Bellamy gave him a one man exhibition at the Green Gallery. In 1962, Wesselmann participated in the group exhibition “New Realists” at the Sidney Janis Gallery and kicked off his international career. In that same year his first pieces with the title of Still Life, came about. In these works, Wesselmann concentrated on the juxtaposition of different elements, i.e. a cigarette ad...

A painting by Tom Wesselmann. "Bedroom Breast" is an oil on cut-out aluminum painting executed in a lush palette primarily of blues, turquoise, peach, pi...

Study for Sunset Nude (Variation 5). Original ink and colored pencil on Tracing Paper, 2002. Tom Wesselmann is one of the biggest American pop artists today. Even he did not like bei...

Study for Sunset Nude with Abstract Painting (Lying on Side). Original ink and colored pencil on Tracing Paper, 2002. Tom Wesselmann is one of the biggest American pop artists today....

Study for Sunset Nude with Abstract Painting (Lying on Side). Original ink and colored pencil on Tracing Paper, 2002. Tom Wesselmann is one of the biggest American pop artists today....

Study for Sunset Nude with Abstract Painting. Original ink and colored pencil on Tracing Paper, 2002. Tom Wesselmann is one of the biggest American pop artists today. Even he did not...

Judy on Blue Blanket. Original color silkscreen on Museum Board, 2000. Edition of 75 signed and numbered impressions on Museum Board. Tom Wesselmann is on...

Monica Nude with Lichtenstein. Original color silkscreen on cardboard, 2002. Edition of 60 signed and numbered impressions on a cardboard. Tom Wesselmann is one of the biggest American pop artists today. Even he did not like being labeled a pop artist, it is hard to imagine that his artworks featuring consumer goods and assorted American icons would be considered anything but pop art. At first he was a follower of abstract expressionism, but later switched to figurative art. In the late ‘50s he produced a series of small format collages, which became the basis for his future nudes and still lifes. In 1963 he married Claire Selley, his most faithful model from the series ‘Great American Nude’, and other nudes. In his search for creative styles he began to produce three-dimensional works with the technique of assemblage, using everyday objects such as telephones and televisions. In the ‘Still Life’ series he used advertising techniques and complemented traditional still lifes with mass consumption items taken directly from ads. In the ‘80s he began to work with metals and produced original works with a special laser. Over the next two decades he returned to large formats and the theme of the nude from the ‘60s, rounding off his career with The ‘Sunset Nude’ series, inspired by the works of Matisse. Tom Wesselmann went down in history as one of the greatest representatives of pop art due to his exciting commercial images, his aggressive intervention in three dimensions, his choice of trivial motifs, their monumentalisation, the use of stereotypes as a basis for his work and the choice of strong colors. Wesselmann’s aesthetic usage of everyday objects was done not in criticism of American consumerism and culture, but as a way to render Classical genres modern so as to explore the gap between art and contemporary life. He has a series that incorporated iconic paintings by other artists, including Lichtenstein, Warhol, and Matisse, juxtaposing with his famous nudes...