Lot 9016: Gordon Wagner (American, 1915-1987) V.R., 1954 56 x 24 1/2 x 5in (142 x 62 x 12cm)

V.R., 1954
Wagner '54' (on the reverse)
mixed media assemblage
56 x 24 1/2 x 5in (142 x 62 x 12cm)

Provenance:
Estate of the Artist

Exhibition:
Pacific Dreams: Currents of Surrealism and Fantasy in California Art, 1934-1957, UCLA Armand Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 1995

Literature:
Pacific Dreams: Currents of Surrealism and Fantasy in California Art, 1934-1957, Susan Ehrlich, ed., Los Angeles, 1995, p. 176-177, ill. 127

Note:
Gordon Wagner is considered to be a leader of the California assemblage movement. He earned a degree in engineering and art from UCLA, attended the Chouinard Art Institute, and worked in the aerospace industry for over twenty years. He began exploring art through easel painting and drawing while his engineering job paid the bills. In the late 1940s/early 1950s, he traveled through Mexico and the Southwest, seeking out indigenous cultures and shamanistic ritual forms. Later, he hosted dinners at his studios, where artists Betye Saar, Michael McMillen, Bruce Houson, John Schroeder and others would gather to eat, socialize and exchange objects and ideas.

Wagner has exhibited widely in the United States and Europe. He has showed at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, as well as surrounding Los Angeles art galleries, including the Ferus Gallery. His work was included in the seminal exhibition Forty Years of California Assemblage at UCLA’s Wight Gallery in 1989, which reinforced Wagner’s influence on the Assemblage movement. He also exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC and the Pratt Institute Gallery in New York City, as well as galleries in England, Belgium, The Netherlands, and Sweden. Towards the end of his career, Wagner was featured in the “So Cal” show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 2008.

We are grateful to Tobey C. Moss Gallery for providing the above information.