Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) became one of the leading American Pop artsists of the 1960s rejecting abstract exspresionism in favour of classical representation of the nude, still life and landscape. He created collages and assamblages incorporating everyday objects and advertising ephemera in an effort to make images as powerful as the apstract exspresionism he admired. He is perhaps the best known for his Great American Nude series with their flat forms and intense colors.
In the seventies Wesselmann continue to explore the ideas and media which have preoccupied him durig the sixties. Most significantly his large Standing Still Life series composed of free standing shaped canvases showed small intimate objects on a grand scale. In 1980 Wesselmann using pseudonym Slim Stealingworth wrote an autobiography documenting the evolution of his artistic work. He continued explorig shaped canvases and began creating his first works in metal. He instigated the development of lasser-cutting applications which would allow him to make a faithfull translation of his drawing in cut-out metal.
The 1990s and early 2000s saw the artist expanding on these themes creating abstract tree-dimensional images that he described as “going back to what I desperately been aiming for at 1959.” He had indeed come full circle. In his final years he returned to the female forms in his Sunset Nudes series of oil paintings on canvas, whose bold composition, abstract imagery and sanguine moods often recall the odalisques of Henry Matisse.
Wesselmann worked in New York City for more than four decades. He lived in New York City with his wife and children.