Tom Wesselmann

Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 23, 1931, Tom Wesselmann attended Hiram College from 1949 to 1951 before entering the University of Cincinnati. His studies were interrupted for two years when he joined the army, where he began drawing cartoons. He returned to university and received a bachelor's degree in psychology in 1956, before deciding to pursue a career in art at the Art Academy of Cincinnati. At Galerie de Bellefeuille, we are proud to count Tom Wesselmann among the modern masters we present.

From Cincinnati to Cooper Union

After graduation, Wesselmann moved to New York City, where he was accepted into Cooper Union and his focus shifted decisively to fine art. He received his diploma in 1959 and lived and worked in New York for the next forty years.

The nude and the still life, subjects for a lifetime

Wesselmann became one of the leading American Pop artists of the 1960s, rejecting abstract expressionism in favour of classical representations of the nude, still life and landscape. He created collages and assemblages incorporating everyday objects and advertising ephemera, aiming to make images as powerful as the abstract expressionism he nonetheless admired.

The Standing Still Life series

In the seventies, he continued to explore the ideas and media that had preoccupied him during the Sixties. His large Standing Still Life series, composed of free-standing shaped canvases, showed small intimate objects on a grand scale. As in his early work, he used flat elements that paradoxically created a surprisingly convincing illusion of depth — each Tom Wesselmann painting from this period plays on that tension between flatness and volume.

Wesselmann, Picasso and Matisse

Although associated with Pop Art, Tom Wesselmann felt his real peers were the Modern painters of the twentieth century, chief among them Pablo Picasso and especially Henri Matisse. Like those modern masters, his two most prolific subjects throughout his career were the female nude and the still life. Although his subjects stayed the same, he relentlessly experimented with them, re-invigorating a staid genre through unorthodox media and a contemporary execution that remained unmistakably his own.

Coming full circle

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Wesselmann revisited his classic themes, creating abstract three-dimensional images he described as "going back to what I had desperately been aiming for in 1959." He died in 2004, surrounded by his wife Claire and their three children.

Collecting Tom Wesselmann

To own a Tom Wesselmann painting or sculpture is to own an essential fragment of American Pop Art history, carried by bold colour and constant formal invention.

Collectors drawn to contemporary Pop Art will find a complementary universe in Jeff Koons and contemporary pop art.

Finally, collectors interested in the reduction of the figure to its essential form will find an echo in Julian Opie's reduction of the figure.

To discover the works of Tom Wesselmann currently available, our team welcomes you to our spaces in Montreal and Toronto.

FAQ

Who was Tom Wesselmann?

Tom Wesselmann (1931–2004) was an American painter, one of the leading figures of 1960s Pop Art, known for his representations of the nude and the still life.

Where can I see or acquire a work by Tom Wesselmann?

Galerie de Bellefeuille presents a selection of Tom Wesselmann's work at its Montreal and Toronto spaces; our team is happy to guide you through the artist's work.

What were Tom Wesselmann's favourite subjects?

His two most prolific subjects were the female nude and the still life, which he reinvented throughout his career through unorthodox media and often monumental scale.