His bubble-like plastic wall pieces reflected Southern California's sunshine and car culture. He made his mark early, as part of the original stable of artists at Ferus Gallery, an avant-garde showcase on La Cienega Boulevard.
Artist Craig Kauffman, a sparkplug of Los Angeles' art scene in the late 1950s and early '60s who captured national attention with bubble-like plastic wall pieces that reflect Southern California's sunshine and car culture, died Sunday at his home in the Philippines. He was 78.
Kauffman had a stroke about two months ago, said art dealer Frank Lloyd, who represents the artist. Kauffman attended the early-April opening of his most recent exhibition at Lloyd's gallery in Santa Monica, but his condition worsened after he returned to the Philippines. He died of complications from pneumonia, Lloyd said.
An independent thinker whose work is often described in terms of voluptuous curves and sensuous surfaces, Kauffman worked in a self-styled aesthetic territory that has been called a seductive strain of Minimalism or an abstract version of Pop art. And he made his mark early, as part of the original stable of artists at Ferus Gallery, an avant-garde showcase on La Cienega Boulevard founded by artist Edward Kienholz and curator Walter Hopps.
“Craig was the smartest guy," said painter Ed Moses, a Ferus colleague and longtime friend. “He had traveled. He knew all about the New York School and what was going on in Europe. He had a very sharp eye. We all learned from him."
Stephanie Barron, senior curator of modern art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, deemed Kauffman “a seminal figure in the evolution of the L.A. art scene" whose “distinctive, luminous wall relief sculptures helped to define an era in our art history."
He also produced many abstract paintings and drawings, but the vacuum-formed plastic pieces are his signature works, Barron said, adding that they are partly responsible for a recent renewal of interest in the development of Los Angeles art.
One of those artworks, a 1967 pink and yellow lozenge-like relief in LACMA's collection, was in the news in 2006. Part of “Los Angeles: Birth of an Art Capital, 1955-1985," a highly publicized exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris, it mysteriously fell from a wall and shattered. Technology and paints had changed considerably in 39 years. But with the help of specialists and money from the Pompidou, Kauffman made a new version “Untitled Wall Relief (cast by the artist from the irreparably damaged 'Untitled Wall Relief,' 1967), 2008" for the Los Angeles museum.
“It's not a miracle," the artist said upon completing the complicated project, “but it's pretty lucky." More intensely colored than the original, the new one also has a different mounting system. “We worked out a new one that's very sturdy," Kauffman said. “It's not going to fall off the wall."
Artist Craig Kauffman, a sparkplug of Los Angeles' art scene in the late 1950s and early '60s who captured national attention with bubble-like plastic wall pieces that reflect Southern California's sunshine and car culture, died Sunday at his home in the Philippines. He was 78.
Kauffman had a stroke about two months ago, said art dealer Frank Lloyd, who represents the artist. Kauffman attended the early-April opening of his most recent exhibition at Lloyd's gallery in Santa Monica, but his condition worsened after he returned to the Philippines. He died of complications from pneumonia, Lloyd said.
An independent thinker whose work is often described in terms of voluptuous curves and sensuous surfaces, Kauffman worked in a self-styled aesthetic territory that has been called a seductive strain of Minimalism or an abstract version of Pop art. And he made his mark early, as part of the original stable of artists at Ferus Gallery, an avant-garde showcase on La Cienega Boulevard founded by artist Edward Kienholz and curator Walter Hopps.
“Craig was the smartest guy," said painter Ed Moses, a Ferus colleague and longtime friend. “He had traveled. He knew all about the New York School and what was going on in Europe. He had a very sharp eye. We all learned from him."
Stephanie Barron, senior curator of modern art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, deemed Kauffman “a seminal figure in the evolution of the L.A. art scene" whose “distinctive, luminous wall relief sculptures helped to define an era in our art history."
He also produced many abstract paintings and drawings, but the vacuum-formed plastic pieces are his signature works, Barron said, adding that they are partly responsible for a recent renewal of interest in the development of Los Angeles art.
One of those artworks, a 1967 pink and yellow lozenge-like relief in LACMA's collection, was in the news in 2006. Part of “Los Angeles: Birth of an Art Capital, 1955-1985," a highly publicized exhibition at the Pompidou Center in Paris, it mysteriously fell from a wall and shattered. Technology and paints had changed considerably in 39 years. But with the help of specialists and money from the Pompidou, Kauffman made a new version “Untitled Wall Relief (cast by the artist from the irreparably damaged 'Untitled Wall Relief,' 1967), 2008" for the Los Angeles museum.
“It's not a miracle," the artist said upon completing the complicated project, “but it's pretty lucky." More intensely colored than the original, the new one also has a different mounting system. “We worked out a new one that's very sturdy," Kauffman said. “It's not going to fall off the wall."
