Paul Thek was an American painter, sculptor and installation artist.
11 Facts About Paul Thek
1.
2.
In 1950, Paul Thek studied at the Art Students League of New York as well as Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, before entering the School of Art at the Cooper Union in New York in 1951.
3.
Paul Thek traveled to Italy in 1962, and with Hujar visited the Catacombs of the Capuchins in Palermo, an experience which had a strong influence on his work.
4.
Paul Thek was particularly close to Sontag, who dedicated her 1966 collection of essays, Against Interpretation, to him.
5.
Between 1964 and 1967, Paul Thek had three solo exhibitions of his famed Technological Reliquaries at Stable Gallery and Pace Gallery in New York.
6.
Paul Thek was awarded a Fulbright fellowship in 1967 to Italy, leaving New York shortly after his exhibition for The Tomb opened.
7.
The figure in Paul Thek's Tomb was popularly associated with the American hippie movement and has often been mistitled as Death of a Hippie.
8.
Paul Thek traveled and lived throughout Europe during the late 1960s and early 1970s and worked on large scale installations.
9.
Paul Thek died on August 10,1988, a year after learning he had AIDS.
10.
Works of Paul Thek are on permanent display at The Watermill Center on Long Island, New York.
11.
The Tomb, perhaps his most famous work, was a pink ziggurat which encased an effigy of Paul Thek made from a mannequin with face, hands, and feet cast from his own body.