Robert Graham (sculptor)
| Robert Graham | |
|---|---|
Detail of front doors of Spalding House, the Honolulu Museum of Art, cast bronze, 1988
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| Born |
August 19, 1938 Mexico City, Mexico |
| Died | December 27, 2008 (aged 70) Santa Monica, California, U.S. |
| Education |
San Jose State College San Francisco Art Institute |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Notable work |
Olympic Gateway - Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles, California (1984); Joe Louis Memorial - Detroit, Michigan (1986) |
| Website | www |
Robert Graham (August 19, 1938 – December 27, 2008) was a sculptor based in the state of California in the United States. His monumental bronzes commemorate the human figure, and are featured in public places across America.
Graham was born in Mexico City, Mexico on Aug. 19, 1938, to Roberto Pena and Adelina Graham. Roberto Pena died when his son was six years old, and the boy, his mother Adelina, his grandmother Ana, and his aunt Mercedes left Mexico and moved to San Jose, California.
Robert Graham began his formal art training at San Jose State University where he was taught by artist Frederick Spratt. He continued his studies at the San Francisco Art Institute in California, finishing in 1964. Robert married his first wife Joey Graham in 1959; they have one son Steven, born in 1963.
By the late 1960s, Graham had one-man exhibitions of his sculpture at important contemporary art galleries in Palo Alto, Los Angeles, New York City, London, Cologne, and Essen, Germany. He, along with family members Joey and Steven, lived in London for a period before settling in Los Angeles in the early 1970s. His first solo exhibition in a museum was at the Dallas Museum of Art in 1972. Since then he has had dozens of one-man shows, including several at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Graham used a range of materials and scales in his work. In the 1970s he created very small wax sculptures (circa 4 inches (10 cm)) in miniature dioramas, depicting people interacting in various contemporary environments, such as a living room or a beach scene. Some of these interactions included sexual congress. Graham's 1986 monument to the boxer Joe Louis is a 24 feet (7.3 m) bronze fist and forearm. He has created hundreds of nude figures and groupings in intermediate scales.
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