Richard Van Buren

Garth Greenan Gallery is pleased to announce Richard Van Buren: Monet’s Swamp, an exhibition of new works in polyester resin. The exhibition is the artist’s third with Garth Greenan Gallery. Six of Van Buren’s densely layered abstract sculptures will be on view, including a twenty-one-element, sixty-foot floor piece, Old Sow (2016).

The exhibition provides an in-depth look at the artist’s work since 2014—plastic biomorphs packed with materials as seemingly disparate as dry pigment, costume jewelry, fiberglass, wallpaper paste, and glitter. Ckuwye (2016)—a highlight of the exhibition—consists of five brightly colored elements, all of which look like they were fished from some Technicolor version of one of Monet’s ponds. This piece, as well as others in the exhibition, continues Van Buren’s career-long exploration of the relationship between organic forms and synthetic materials.

Born in Syracuse, New York in 1937, Richard Van Buren studied painting and sculpture at San Francisco State University and the National University of Mexico. While still a student, Van Buren began exhibiting his work at San Francisco’s famed Dilexi Gallery, alongside artists as diverse as Franz Kline, H.C. Westermann, Ron Nagle, Ed Moses, and Robert Morris. In 1964, Van Buren relocated to New York. From 1967 to 1988, he taught in the Sculpture Department at the School of Visual Arts. In 1988, he began teaching at the Parsons School of Design. He remained at Parsons until September 2001. Van Buren lives and works in Perry, Maine.

During the 1960s and 1970s, Van Buren had solo exhibitions at many of the most influential and prestigious galleries, including: Bykert Gallery (1967, 1968, 1969, New York), 112 Greene Street (1972, New York), Paula Cooper Gallery (1972, 1975, 1977, New York), and Texas Gallery (1974, 1976, Houston). During this period, his work also figured prominently in many landmark museum exhibitions, such as Primary Structures (1966, The Jewish Museum), A Romantic Minimalism (1967, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia), A Plastic Presence (1970, Milwaukee Art Center), and Works for New Spaces (1971, Walker Art Center), among others. In 1977, the City University of New York, Graduate Center mounted a retrospective exhibition of Van Buren’s work.

Van Buren’s work is featured in the collections of major museums around the world, including: the Art Institute of Chicago; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Museum of Modern Art; the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Smithsonian American Art Museum; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; and the Walker Art Center.

Garth Greenan Gallery is pleased to represent Richard Van Buren.