Richard Ernst Artschwager
American, born 1923
They settled in New York where he worked in a series of unconnected jobs like bank clerk, lathe operator, and baby photographer. In 1950, Artschwager borrowed money and bought an old Federal-style building in the Chelsea section of Manhattan on West 22nd Street. His sister Marguerite and her husband, a doctoral student named Arthur Kay, moved in, too. The two men began a small production company making fine furniture. Artschwager had evolved into doing collages with wood, paper, cloth and formica, in a minimalist style. It might be best to say that the Fifties were preparation for the move to the art world for Artschwager. He made a great deal of furniture in those days and even sold one item, a boomerang-shaped desk, to the Pottery Barn. In 1954 a daughter was born, and two years later his father died. In the late 1960s his marriage ended.
In November 1968 he went to the University of Wisconsin as an artist-in-residence. There he met Catherine Kord, whom he married in 1972. The furniture business went under, and after he went through a period of hibernation his work began to sell and recognition began to appear on a grander scale. He experimented with many widely diverse forms.
Artschwager married a third time; her name was Molly O'Gorman and they had a daughter, Clara.
He was commissioned by the International Graphic Arts Society for the print "Pheasant", the Martin Luther King Monument in Oberlin.
He has had one-man shows at Jersey City State College, Miami University in Oxford and the University of Kansas.
His awards include Ford Foundation Faculty Fellowship Program, Audubon Artists Medal of Honor and the Oberlin Alumni Medal.
Person TypeIndividual
