Ibram lassaw biography of martin

In he began his formal art training at Brooklyn's Children Museum. His early work in clay was figurative and conventional in appearance. Lassaw began sculpting abstractly in , making him one of the first Americans to explore nonobjective sculpture. During this time his plaster sculptures molded onto wire showed the influence of Surrealist biomorphism rendered in a geometric idiom.

At times Lassaw revealed the wire armature, and he also began to apply colors to the plaster and wire. He first welded sculpture in ; Sculpture in Steel , Whitney Museum of American Art, New York is made of a piece of sheet metal topped by a thin iron frame. Several biomorphic shapes of hammered and brazed steel project from the open metal frame, and another shape is welded to the base of the work.

While serving in the United States Army from to , Lassaw learned how to weld with an oxyacetylene torch, a technique that would later influence his signature style. Upon Lassaw's return to New York, his sculpture became increasingly rectilinear, but it was not until he purchased his own oxyacetylene torch with the proceeds from his first oneman show at the Kootz Gallery that he could take his sculpture to the level he wanted.

As one of the original American Abstract.

Lassaw retained his rectilinear format, but with the high temperature torch he added texture by liquefying and incrusting the intertwined webs of metal until his sculpture possessed tactility. From Lassaw often added colorful minerals such as quartz, and semi-precious stones such as turquoise, to his open form sculptures. From this period on Lassaw enjoyed acclaim, including invitations to display his sculptures at the Venice Bien-nale , the Museum of Modern Art in New York , among other years , and the Sao Paulo Bienale He also received several architectural commissions, most frequently synagogue sculpture.

Lassaw also designed a bronze menorah for the synagogue, among other interior sculptures. Goossen, R.