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opposed, as he did the war. Seeing his son serve in such a conflict only resulted in strengthening his own anti-militaristic views further. His "Antimobile" work also took on a contemptuous anti-materialism tone, which is seen in his growingly anti-consumerism views. Westermann criticized the growing lack of craftsmanship in modern industry and the increase of machine made products. He mentioned the "depersonalization of society by the machine" as a major influence of his adult artistic career. In contrast, his works all bear the same meticulous attention to detail and overall high levels of personal craftsmanship. Every single piece of one of
Westermann's sculptures is hand filed and finished, with the same attention to detail given to the inner, unseen components as the outer finish.
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classmates and staff alike for his maturity and real world experiences. To complement his tuition from the G.I. Bill, he learned the craft of woodworking and began to take on work as a carpenter. He quickly established a reputation for quality work, yet his superiors urged him to value speed over craftsmanship, a conflict of values that led to him leaving carpentry for work and becoming a sculptor rather than a handyman. He continued his work until his death on
November 3, 1981.
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Expressiveness. At first, his works were viewed simply as a form of social commentary, which to an extent, they were. Yet
Westermann never provided any meaning or subjective interpretation to his various works, stating "It puzzles me, too," when asked about the meaning of one of his sculptures. This lack of a defined underlying movement led to Westermann's work being closely associated with Expressionism, while still drawing on Surrealist notions.
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Surrealist-inspired artists such as Joseph
Cornell. However, Westermann's work encompasses elements from a broad and diverse range of artistic practices, including Assemblage, Dada, and Folk Art. His sculptures, moreover, point to minimal and post-minimal art of the late 1960s and beyond, in terms of their rigorous craftsmanship, formal sophistication, unconventional use of materials, and sense of humor.
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had a son, Gregory. Westermann then enrolled in the School of the Art
Institute of Chicago in 1947 to study Applied Art. He also took a job in the Applied Arts Department to financially support his new family. Three years later, June divorced Westermann, after which he grew increasingly disillusioned with mainstream art.
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In terms of subject matter and style, Westermann also held a plethora of techniques. In his array of sculptures and paintings, he relied on dry humor as much as strong visual images and bristling social commentary. The clearest depiction of this is his work "Walnut Box-1964," which is a small wooden
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Even his later works retain this same theme of human helplessness, as they usually revolve around some scenario involving impending doom for the subject. Adding to this common theme, Gregory, Westermann's son, enlisted in the
Marines and served in the Vietnam War, a decision that Westermann strongly
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Immediately following the end of the war, Westermann formed a two-man acrobatics act with the United
Service Organization (USO) and toured the Far East for a year, where he met his first wife, June Laford, a showgirl performing in Shanghai. Together, Westermann and his new bride moved to Chicago and
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was heavily involved in the
Pacific campaign and took part in many critical battles, such as the Battle of Midway and the Guadalcanal campaign. The ship bore the brunt of numerous Japanese Kamikaze attacks, horrific events that informed much of H.C. Westermann's later work. Additionally, Westermann
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As mentioned before, a major distinction of
Westermann's works is his excruciating level of precision and craftsmanship, as well as his predilection for dovetailed corners and laminated wood in his final products. Nor did he ever confine himself to just one set of materials. Westermann experimented
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Horace
Clifford (H.C.) Westermann was born in Los Angeles, California in December 1922. His father of the same name was an accountant. From an early age H.C. Westermann demonstrated a natural talent and aptitude for the arts, specifically sculpting. He designed and ultimately created his personal
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He became well known for combining existential allusions with distinctive dry wit in a sculpture built to the highest standard of detail. What emerged from Westermann's workshop was a piece unlike anything else seen at the time. His contemporaries held Westermann and his works in very high regard,
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His works reflected this lack of unity in definition as well as form, as Westermann produced a wide array of works, from sculptures to lithographs, using materials ranging from paper and plywood to brass and lead. Yet all his works reflected a common theme, shaped by his wartime experiences. In a
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in the early days of the Pacific campaign. He was strapped into an anti-aircraft gun emplacement on the stern of the ship when they came under attack by Japanese aircraft. A kamikaze pilot streaked towards the ship, prompting Westermann to fire upon, hit, and consequentially deflect the aircraft
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It was the skills gained during his stint as a carpenter and his constant commitment to excellence that quickly garnered Westermann a reputation as one of the top sculptors of his time. His works were never clearly defined by the prevailing artistic movements of the day, Surrealism and Figurative
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This brutal vision of the human condition stuck with Westermann and resulted in his very bleak and anti-militaristic worldview: that everyone is alone in a world run by events beyond anyone's control. The clearest depiction of this philosophy is seen in his aforementioned "Death Ships" series, a
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After he left the Marine Corps at the end of the war, Westermann again enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago under the G.I. Bill to study Fine Art. Although he lacked the experience working as an artist that many of his younger peers held, Westermann was very well liked by his
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After graduating from High School, Westermann briefly enrolled in Los Angeles City College and later took a job in the Pacific Northwest as a rail worker in logging camps. In 1942, at the outbreak of World War II, he enlisted in the US Marine Corps at age twenty and was stationed aboard the USS
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techniques. From the late 1950s until his death in 1981, Westermann worked with a number of materials and formal devices to address a range of personal, literary, artistic, and pop-cultural references. The artist's sculptural oeuvre is distinguished by its intricate craftsmanship in which wood,
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Feeling bitter and fed up with the current state of art in America, as well as unhappy with his current situation, Westermann reenlisted in the US Marine Corps in 1950 as an infantryman in the Korean War. He entered the conflict still patriotic from his service in World War II, yet due to the
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Westermann's sculptures reveal not only the influence of craft traditions, but also of varied art historical precedents. The artist's ability to convey subtle and uncanny effects through the presentation of seemingly simple objects has often led critics to compare his work to that of
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with all manner of wood, metal, laminate, synthetic materials such as rubber, and more. The viewer is met with the sense that every individual material is treated as a precious commodity. Nothing is wasted and everything holds an integral share of the finished sculpture.
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into the front of his ship, where he was powerless to watch it impact and explode the bow as he was strapped to the stern. In this letter, Westermann goes on to explain that this memory, and many more like it, were still vividly ingrained in his mind.
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and the loss of over 800 men. He would later reflect on the experience and described "the horrible smell of death…" The brutal and horrific naval warfare experienced by Westermann is reflected in most of his work, especially his "Death Ships" series.
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military blunders and senseless violence he witnessed, he left the conflict with a drastically different set of values of America's place in the world. These anti-military views would later be reflected in his future works.
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box constructed of walnut and filled with real walnuts. This marks a clear transition from his usual ambiguous and enigmatic style, yet still retains the same level of craftsmanship seen in each of Westermann's sculptures.
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Please remove or replace such wording and instead of making proclamations about a subject's importance, use facts and attribution to demonstrate that importance.
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metal, glass, and other materials are laboriously hand-tooled, and by its ability to convey an offbeat, often humorous, individualistic sensibility.
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collection of sculptures and painting depicting bombed out husks of ships, usually set aflame, surrounded by ominous shark fins in the ocean.
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even if some critics did not. For the most part, his work was very well received by critics and the public alike.
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scooters and toys. Eventually, he even contributed a small addition to his parents’ home.
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Westermann was subject to his third major museum retrospective in June 2001 at the
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Westermann was subject to his second major museum retrospective in May 1978 at the
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Westermann was subject to his first major museum retrospective in November 1968 at
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letter to a friend, Westermann describes a situation he experienced aboard the USS
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Untitled (This Great Rock was Buried Once for a Million Years) (sculpture), 1968 (
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by H. C. Westermann, 1965, birch plywood, rosewood, metal, rubber bumpers,
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was released by Pentimenti Productions in 2023. The film was directed by
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They Couldn't Put "Humpty Dumpty" Back Together Again (sculpture), 1980 (
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Sisson, Richard; Zacher, Christian; Cayton, Andrew (November 8, 2006).
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Westermann is the subject of a major retrospective (1955–1981) at the
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180:(December 11, 1922 – November 3, 1981) was an American sculptor and
184:. His sculptures frequently incorporated traditional carpentry and
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Theatrical Worlds Spirit after Bernardino Jacobi, about 1949
659:"H.C. Westermann's Well-Honed Lines of A Rough-Hewn Life"
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Westermann: Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea
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Untitled (in the manner of Salvador Dalí), about 1948
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United States Marine Corps personnel of World War II
542:"See America First": The Prints of H. C. Westermann
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Woman Descending into Paradise (watercolor), 1979 (
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Memorial to the Idea of Man If He Was an Idea, 1958
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363:Woman from Indianapolis (Columbia, Missouri), 1967
537:. New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1978.
403:Escape Down the Still River (watercolor), 1979 (
565:American Midwest: An Interpretive Encyclopedia
839:School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni
432:an expanded version of which traveled to the
396:H.C.W. (Poster Project) (watercolor), 1977 (
379:An Affair in the Islands (watercolor), 1972 (
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794:H.C. Westermann at Venus Over Manhattan
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472:Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
210:as an anti-aircraft gunner. The USS
145:School of the Art Institute of Chicago
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544:. Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, 2001.
468:Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
287:A Soldier's Dream (sculpture), 1955 (
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304:Untitled ("Unusual Physician"), 1957
360:Green Planet (Green Planet π), 1967
43:This article contains wording that
854:20th-century American male artists
464:Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
434:Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
366:See America First – a series, 1968
342:Machine for Calculating Risk, 1962
48:without imparting real information
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864:20th-century American printmakers
393:The Connecticut Ballroom, 1975–76
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849:20th-century American sculptors
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804:MOCA Essay on H.C. Westermann
339:Disasters in the Sky #2, 1962
27:American sculptor (1922-1981)
789:NYT H.C. Westermann Obituary
799:H.C. Westermann Documentary
357:Death Ship of No Port, 1967
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178:Horace Clifford Westermann
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457:New Orleans Museum of Art
326:Angry Young Machine, 1959
280:Reluctant Acrobat, 1949 (
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715:The Internet Archive
354:Korean KAI ASH, 1965
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133:Danbury, Connecticut
376:Hammer in Box, 1970
318:Smart Museum of Art
299:Smart Museum of Art
834:Assemblage artists
625:. Terra Foundation
617:Rammohan, Yasmin.
533:Haskell, Barbara.
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619:"H.C. Westermann"
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114:California
102:1922-12-11
58:April 2024
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522:Ed Harris
514:Ed Ruscha
197:Biography
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717:. 1978
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