1. Claire Falkenstein was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, jewelry designer, and teacher, most renowned for her often large-scale abstract metal and glass public sculptures.
25 Facts About Claire Falkenstein
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Claire Falkenstein relentlessly explored media, techniques, and processes with uncommon daring and intellectual rigor.
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Claire Falkenstein first worked in the San Francisco Bay Area, then in Paris and New York, and finally in Los Angeles.
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Claire Falkenstein was involved with art groups as radical as the Gutai Group in Japan and Un Art Autre in Paris and secured a lasting position in the vanguard, which she held until her death in 1997.
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An interest in Einstein's theories of the universe inspired Claire Falkenstein to create sculptures from wire and fused glass that explored the concept of infinite space.
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Claire Falkenstein was born on July 22,1908, in Coos Bay, Oregon.
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Claire Falkenstein attended the University of California at Berkeley, and graduated in 1930 with a major in art and minors in anthropology and philosophy.
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Claire Falkenstein had her first one-woman exhibition, at a San Francisco gallery, even before graduation.
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Claire Falkenstein taught art classes at various Bay Area locations, such as UC Berkeley Extension, Mills College, and the California Labor School.
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Claire Falkenstein taught at the innovative California School of Fine Arts, alongside abstract expressionists such as Clyfford Still, who would become a close friend and artistic influence, and Richard Diebenkorn.
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Claire Falkenstein married Irish-American lawyer Richard Francis McCarthy on July 14,1934, in Alameda, California.
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Claire Falkenstein did move to Paris in 1950 and remained for thirteen years, maintaining a studio on the Left Bank.
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Claire Falkenstein became associated with the free-form abstractions of L'Art Informel, the French counterpart of American Abstract Expressionism.
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Out of economic necessity, Claire Falkenstein inventively used inexpensive nontraditional materials for her artwork, including wooden logs, stovepipe wire, and lead bars.
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Claire Falkenstein used stovepipe wire, in particular, in innovative ways, and continued to do so even after she was able to afford other materials.
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Claire Falkenstein applied the term to her paintings and prints as well.
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Claire Falkenstein was commissioned to create welded gates for the sea villa of the Princess Luciana Pignatelli.
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Claire Falkenstein's jewelry was the subject of her 1961 solo exhibition at the Louvre's Musee des Arts Decoratifs.
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Claire Falkenstein received many high-profile commissions for large public art pieces, including sculptures, fountains, and screens.
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In 1977, the film: "Claire Falkenstein, Sculptor" was created by Jae Carmichael.
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Claire Falkenstein was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fine Arts in 1978.
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Claire Falkenstein died at her Venice home on October 23,1997, of stomach cancer, at the age of 89.
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Claire Falkenstein explores and manipulates three dimensional space using her topological structure.
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Claire Falkenstein describes her work as a topological sculpture due to the curving pipes and tubes that embody the idea of penetration and surfacing.
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Claire Falkenstein's work was included in the 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou.