Alan Shields, Artist of 70's Style, Dies at 61
deb...@comcast.net
By ROBERTA SMITH
Published: December 21, 2005
Alan Shields, whose radiantly colored, sewing-machine stitched,
three-dimensional paintings made him prominent in the New York art
world of the 1970's, died on Tuesday at his home on Shelter Island, New
York. He was 61.
Mr. Shields was being treated for emphysema and died in his sleep, said
Marla Gagnum, his companion.
A tall, athletic man with a pierced ear, shaved head and full beard,
Mr. Shields simultaneously resembled a harpooner out of Melville and a
hippie from central casting. He burst on the scene in 1969, with a show
at the Paula Cooper Gallery in SoHo, with a style of counterculture
modernism that became so popular its sales supported the gallery for
several years. By 1973, his work had appeared on the cover of Artforum
and been acquired by numerous major museums in New York and across the
country.
Mr. Shields's work combined expanses of gorgeous stained color,
reminiscent of Helen Frankenthaler's canvases, with the humbler crafts
and a Gypsy sense of portability. Mr. Shields was a Post-Minimalist,
but his work had a joyful quality at odds with his many of his more
cerebral contemporaries.
His unstretched textilelike paintings conjured up tribal non-Western
cultures and undermined notions of painterly machismo. They could
resemble pliant mandalas or sky maps with stitching and beads for
constellations, be elegantly tie-dyed structures reminiscent of small
tents, hanging labyrinths, or simple strands of beads or strips of
canvas.
Mr. Shields was, as the critic Robert Hughes wrote, a brilliant
bricoleur who could, and often did, make art out of just about
anything. In the early 1990's, when his teenage daughter asked him to
stop painting his fingernails, he started painting wood beads and
making necklaces. He collaborated on handmade books, excelled at
watercolor (usually two-sided, often woven) and became an innovative
printmaker, experimenting with handmade paper and turning out editions
in which each print was unique. Recently, he had become interested in
animation.
Born on Feb. 4, 1944, in Herington, Kan., Mr. Shields grew up on his
family's farm doing chores, learning to sew from his mother and two
sisters and assimilating a strong work ethic and penchant for
tinkering. He studied engineering, then theater and finally art at
Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan., and by the time he left
(without a degree), was making three-dimensional paintings with a
sewing machine. He had seen very little contemporary art firsthand.
Although it was linked to Pattern and Decoration in the late 1970's,
Mr. Shields's his work dropped from view in the onslaught of
appropriation art and Neo-Expressionism in the 1980's. Nonetheless, his
work is a forerunner to a host of younger artists using bricolage,
craft, strong color and non-Western references, among them Jessica
Stockholder, Jim Lambie, Jim Drain, Xenobia Bailey and John Bock.
In addition to Ms. Gagnum, he is survived by his the children of his
first marriage, his daughter, Victoria Shields Westlek, and his son,
Jason Shields, both of Shelter Island; his mother, Arvis Shields, of
Kansas City, Mo., and two sisters, Dorothy Dyer, of Kansas City, and
Rosemary Deen, of Shawnee, Kan.
Hyfler/Rosner
<deb...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:1135149145....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> Alan Shields, Artist of 70's Style, Dies at 61
>
>
> By ROBERTA SMITH
> Published: December 21, 2005
> Alan Shields, whose radiantly colored, sewing-machine
> stitched,
> three-dimensional paintings made him prominent in the New
> York art
> world of the 1970's, died on Tuesday at his home on
> Shelter Island, New
> York. He was 61.
http://www.paceprints.com/artistportfolio/artistportfolio.asp?aID=83
http://www.abstract-art.com/abstraction/l3_more_artists/ma18a_shields_worms.htm
http://www.emediawire.com/prfiles/2004/01/16/99286/DSC_2142.JPG
http://www.ragoarts.com/onlinecats/04.05MOD/0665.jpg
Hoodoo
wrote:
>http://www.paceprints.com/artistportfolio/artistportfolio.asp?aID=83
>
>http://www.abstract-art.com/abstraction/l3_more_artists/ma18a_shields_worms.htm
>
>http://www.emediawire.com/prfiles/2004/01/16/99286/DSC_2142.JPG
>
>http://www.ragoarts.com/onlinecats/04.05MOD/0665.jpg
Thanks for the links!