Tom Wesselmann 

Biography

Tom Wesselmann; a Cincinnati, Ohio- born artist back in 1931. Wesselmann went to Hiram College in 1949-1951 in Ohio before joining the University of Cincinnati. Unfortunately, his studies brought into halt a two-year deployment in the army in 1953, during which time he commenced his artwork by drawing cartoons. He then returned to his former university in 1954 and conferred with a bachelor’s degree in psychology in the year 1956. After his graduation, he changed his purpose to pursue his cartooning talent and therefore signed up for an art course at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. After his art studies, he vacated to New York City, where he received acceptance into the Cooper Union; a prestigious and modest art school in the U.S. and dramatically shifted his focus on fine arts then got a diploma in 1959 (Schmahmann & Brenda 269).

Willem de Kooning influenced his artwork by signing him up on Sidney Janis Gallery located in the Midtown Manhattan. Here, Wesselmann grew an overwhelming interest in landscape painting beside the nude and a mainly fruitful scenery painting. In 1958, a trip to New Jersey, he abandoned cartooning to pursue fine arts. From his autobiography, he states that his interest in intellectual pursuits and aesthetics expanded around this time, and he extended his introspective. In the process, he met Claire Selley, and after friendship, they got married in 1963 where Claire modeled most his artworks (Keynan & Daria, 157). After marrying, they got a son and two daughters, and with his wife playing a significant role in his artistic life. During his stay in New York and at Copper Union, his experience to galleries, exhibitions, and museums in the entire city extended his interest in fine art.

In 1980 Wesselmann, applied Slim Stealingworth as his pseudonym and developed an autobiography detailing the fruition of his entire artistic work. He continued discovering shaped canvases which were first unveiled in the 1960s and commenced developing his original works in metal. Wesselmann initiated the introduction of a laser-cutting application. This application allowed him to make a realistic conversion of his portrayals in cut-out metal. In the early 2000s and late 1990s saw the artist intensifying on these thematic abstracts that created abstract three-dimensional pictures that he labeled to be “going back to what I had desperately been aiming for in 1959.” (Doris & Sara 41-49). In his final years, Wesselmann made a debut to the feminist form in his series of Sunset Nudes comprising oil paintings on canvas, whose abstract imagery, sanguine moods and bold compositions often reminiscence the Henri Matisse odalisques.

Tom Wesselmann Work and Life

Tom Wesselmann; a remarkable American artist and is one of the pioneers of the Pop Art movement. After completing his studies at Hiram College in Ohio in 1951 and enrolling in University of Cincinnati in the same year pursue a bachelor’s degree in Psychology, he left the college a year later after getting enlisted with US Army. He later married Claire Selley in 1963 after his two years of service in the military and began making humorous cartoons to express his irritation for being forcefully enlisted with the army. It is here that he discovered his capacity to draw and convey ideas and thoughts through visual means.

Notably, he then left the army and went back to Cincinnati, Ohio to complete his bachelor’s degree and, there, he began enrolling for art courses at an art school known as Art Academy of Cincinnati. Thereafter, after realizing his career is a cartoonist, he enrolled at Cooper Union and began working for New York-based magazines and began his work to publish cartoons. After many vulgarity accusations, Wesselmann insolently lived up to his artwork, especially in the 1970s. It was here that Wesselmann's art became more innovative and extreme, and got radiantly conceived and accepted as one of the immediate contemporaries. In 1961, he made a debut by releasing first of his many artistic impressions "Great American Nudes." It was this work that made him one of the modern masters of contemporary American life.

Tom Wesselmann Stylistic/Modernist Art Movements

Post-Impressionism

Tom Wesselmann mainly focused on outspreading the limitations of this movement’s predecessor by exploring methods that would consent him to gain a better expression form while trying to retain Impressionism’s use of fantastic and bright colors on his paintwork. He mainly composed his artworks independently of other artists, thus, allowing him to experiment his output in different directions from exaggerated Impressionism.

Fauvism

Just like in post-impressionism, Wesselmann exhibited vibrant and fantastic colors in his artworks to capture the landscapes as well as still-lifes. Wesselmann just like his predecessor artist, Matisse, inculcated a deep sense of emotionalism into their several paintings, often applying thick and deliberate brushstrokes alongside vivid colors direct from their tubes that at first disgusted the audience. Wesselmann exhibited the characteristics of this modernist art movement.

Tom Wesselmann Artworks

Tom Wesselmann did important artworks that brought about key creative periods and highlighted his greatest accomplishments.

Great American Nude of 1961

One of the most significant artistic work was the Great American Nude of 1961. The description and analysis of the Wesselmann's earliest artworks appear at the best-known and time-honored theme that tried to juxtapose with the modern-day representation of consumer politics and culture. Following his dream on the phrase "red, white, and blue,” Wesselmann painted his nudes on a patriotic palette, integrating khaki and gold with a mix of military overtones. From this, "Great American Nudes." Series was born. The outer patriotic decor presented a comic element with the insistent blue palette and red white, red curtain, walled stripe and star motifs, and white and blue sheets showing a vibrant color with a stylized pose induced Matisse (Schmahmann & Brenda 268-273). The single facial aspect and a toothy smile represented a right orientation of “de Kooning,” who popularly in the 1950s put a paste of the mouths from ads from cigarettes onto a canvas.

Artwork 1: Great American Nude

Still Life of 1963 Another artwork is the Still Life of 1963. This impressive artwork depicts how Wesselmann rejected Pop art label. This piece plays out as an iconic work that gained traction in the late 1960s and fit directly within its movement. Pop art label deliberately moved away from the 1950s Abstract Expressionism and instead embraced the cultural specificity. At a glance, this kind of message from imageries reflected in the American mid-20thcentury. In the token, it as well referenced the traditional European culture that depicted common goods such as vegetables, flowers, and fruits- in a way that painted their exceptional beauty (Stämpfli & Peter, 95-99).

In The painted canvas, white bread made from the factory, Royal Crown Cola, canned stew, and cigarettes packet all appears in dazzling colors on a board with a streaked cloth. A window on the left gives a view of a commercial airplane spiraling over an emerald sea against a vibrant blue sky. From this depiction, all the entire goods are economical, factory-made and packaged generic foods with different imprints and logos gives one a literal feast for the eyes which illustrates that this painting indulges us into a mere fantasy that these entire things have a good taste as they look or perceived.

Artwork 2: Sunset Nude

Sunset Nude with the Matisse Odalisque of 2003 Artwork Description & Analysis: This grotesque painting reflects a bright riot of overlapping color planes and portrays Wesselmann's life-long determination to shade an American nude in paint form and that which resembled that of Matisse. This favorite homage to of the 20th-century artist, he paints two women lounging in a classic posture ideated by Matisse. As seen, the background image, a palpable reverence to the French master, meticulously mimics Wesselmann’s 1920s odalisques in everything (Keynan & Daria.156-159). This implies the painted hairstyle to the partial shading in brown against a feebly controlled peach skin tone. Apparently, the forefront character is 100 percent imagery of Wesselmann. Matisse's work exhibition inspired this particular artist he came across in 1960 at MoMA, and from this, he reviews both that as a primary source of stimulation while integrating most of his personal technique evolutions. As a result, the illustration draws the viewer's attention on how the standards of beauty keep changing over time, and as well a reminder of the great current relevance of the modernist art in our postmodern age.

Artwork 3: Sunset Nude with the Matisse Odalisque of 2003

Monica Sitting with Mondrian of 1988 This piece of artwork remains to be one of the several paintings of the 1980s and 1990s that merged iconic pictures from other artists, comprising Warhol, Matisse, Lichtenstein who juxtaposed Wesselmann's nudes with these famous previous works. In retrospect, they were made later after his career and carries a kind of retrospective eminence that is viewed as part conquest lap, partially walk down memory lane in an insightful journey back to his backgrounds as a modern art student. Here, a nubile and lithe model known as Monica is seated posing on a pink bed-like sofa in front of a painted abstract done by another of Wesselmann's Dutch modernist idol known as Piet Mondrian (Dreher & Thomas 54-67). Though its appearance is sketchy, the material is metallic that has been filled with artwork paint. What matters in this illustrative artwork is, of course, is vivid beauty and expression of an absolute idea, brought in light through a specific form that has not been experienced before. As a matter of fact, a laser-sharp boundary of the glossy, drenched color in these modern artworks in metal expresses the overarching intention of Wesselmann's impressive work: to resuscitate idealized beauty in the advertising age.

Artwork 4: Monica Sitting with Mondrian of 1988

Bedroom Painting of 1984-93

As Wesselmann insisted on no psychic depth to this artwork, it brought out some slow magic on the audience senses. The links between the nude and the landscape continue to show up in the entire Wesselmann's paintings. Besides, the nude in the form of golden curves rises from the nipple to the head-like mountains crown in the rising sun; as the blue décor elements in the contextual background mimic the blue skies (Markowitz & Sally 73-75). Notably, through the “Bedroom Paintings” work, Wesselmann combines the elements of the previous artworks by shifting such as the “Great American Nudes” by shifting the focus and scale of objects close to the nude figures.

Smoker, 1 (Mouth, 12) Series of 1967

Wesselmann’s Mouth paintings series began in 1965. As seen from this painting, this large canvas portrays a large mouth having a cigarette hanging from the lower lip. Then, a massive stream of gray smoke gusts from the tip, and then the red-filled lips has a sharp contrast with the white teeth. Notably, the image is on one occasion alluring, far-flung, and disturbing, and everything appears too perfect to be just real. In its emphasis on a partial body, this enhances the fetishism element existing in Wesselmann's previous work (Schroeder & Jonathan 96). This artist would then continue this inquiry line into the preceding years of the 1970s in both of his artworks: Seascapes and Smoker Study series – where a single part of the body, like the breasts or foot, became the primary emphasis of the artistic composition.

Here, instead of drawing a portrait of a definite person or rather an advertisement imitation, the ghostly mouth operates as a sort of productiveness symbol as compared to the modern age, and as well a self-portrait object. Apparently, the incorporeal mouth is unambiguously Wesselmann, appearing as a visual kind of calling card for the sketcher. Actually, Wesselmann's artwork: Mouth and its series almost unquestionably stirred one of the most famous iconic movements of band logos of the times; The cover for “Rolling Stones” mainly for “Sticky Fingers” that was designed by Ed Pasche in 1971, a familiar designer with the Wesselmann's work.

Conclusion

By and large, drawing inspiration from the mundane and ubiquitous artworks by the American Pop artist, Wesselmann made creations of varying media and scale that continues to astonish with their humor, metaphoric connotations, and wit. While his work did gain much popularity than those of his counterparts Lichtenstein’s, Warhol’s, Rosenquist’s or Oldenburg’s, Wesselmann warrants some significant credit for standing out as a unique artist of the past decade who tackled the old-style thematic art history like the nude along with the still life.

Works Cited

Doris, Sara. Pop art and the contest over American culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Dreher, Thomas. "The arts and artists of networking." Ars Electronica 95 (1995): 54-67.

Keynan, Daria. "Pop revisited: the collage and assemblage work of Tom Wesselmann." Studies in Conservation 49.sup2 (2004): 156-159.

Markowitz, Sally. "A Taste for Pop: Pop Art, Gender, and Consumer Culture." (1999): 73-75.

Schmahmann, Brenda. "Tom Wesselmann's post-collage works:'Acting in the gap between art and life'." South African Journal of Cultural History 3.3 (1989): 268-273.

Schroeder, Jonathan E. "Materialism and modern art." ACR Special Volumes (1992).

Stämpfli, Peter. "Pictorial Artworks by a Contemporary Realist." Leonardo 12.2 (1979): 95-99.