Tom Wesselmann is considered one of the major artists of New York Pop Art, along with Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. Best known for his 1960s series “Great American Nude,” which featured flat figures in an intense palette of red, white, blue, and other patriotic colors, Wesselmann, in an effort to reject Abstract Expressionism, made collages and assemblages that incorporated everyday objects and advertising ephemera. In the early 1980s, he produced his first "Metal Works,” in which he shaped canvases and cut metal to create abstract three-dimensional images. In his final years, Wesselmann returned to the female form in the “Sunset Nudes” series, where the compositions, abstract imagery, and sanguine moods recall the odalisques of Henri Matisse.
"Born on February 23, 1931 in Cincinnati, OH, he was drafted into the US Army to serve in the Korean War in 1952. Returning home after the war, he studied drawing at the Art Academy of Cincinnati before working as an illustrator of comic strips and men’s magazines. In 1956, he moved to New York where he attended the Cooper Union. Soon after graduation, Wesselmann founded the Judson Gallery, along with Jim Dine and Marcus Ratliff. Beginning in the 1960s, with his Great American Nude series, Wesselman drew from Americana and media culture, to produce billboard-scaled paintings in flat bold colors. Like Dine, he was associated with the Pop Art movement but disagreed with being labeled as such. Through the following decades, the artist honed his idiosyncratic style while continuing to live in New York, NY until his death on December 17, 2004. Today, the artist’s works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others."(artnet.com)
"Born on February 23, 1931 in Cincinnati, OH, he was drafted into the US Army to serve in the Korean War in 1952. Returning home after the war, he studied drawing at the Art Academy of Cincinnati before working as an illustrator of comic strips and men’s magazines. In 1956, he moved to New York where he attended the Cooper Union. Soon after graduation, Wesselmann founded the Judson Gallery, along with Jim Dine and Marcus Ratliff. Beginning in the 1960s, with his Great American Nude series, Wesselman drew from Americana and media culture, to produce billboard-scaled paintings in flat bold colors. Like Dine, he was associated with the Pop Art movement but disagreed with being labeled as such. Through the following decades, the artist honed his idiosyncratic style while continuing to live in New York, NY until his death on December 17, 2004. Today, the artist’s works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others."(artnet.com)
