This artist does not have an image.

Print This Page

Alvin Light
Sculpture
American
(New Hampshire, 1931 - 1980, San Francisco, California)


View the objects by this artist.

Biography

Torquing, ascending, vaguely anthropomorphic shapes; sculptural forms that swoop and dive: these were the lifework of sculptor Alvin Light, who died in the prime of his life, leaving behind a concise, well-defined body of work that to this day remains the definitive example of Bay Area abstract expressionism in three dimensions. His all-over compositions alternated knots of driftwood with arabesques of hardwood, pieced together with wooden pegs and enlivened by daubs of paint in bright primary colors. As Thomas Albright vividly describes, “Working with rich natural woods, he chiseled, chipped, notched, hollowed, mortised, and laminated to form massive, rugged chunks, which he then joined together into totemic and monumental sculptures, alive with athletic torsion, thrust, and expansion.”1

Light grew up in Stockton, California, but often returned to his birthplace in New Hampshire to visit his grandfather, who built boats and created metalwork crafts and woodcarvings. During World War II, Light’s father served as an administrator for schools established within two Japanese American internment camps. According to Charles Shere, “While still in the sixth grade Alvin learned to make things out of found sagebrush or greasewood, stripping the bark to reveal the colors and organic shapes within.”2 After the war the family returned to Stockton, and in 1951 Light moved to San Francisco to attend the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute). His undergraduate study was interrupted by a stint in the army from 1953 to 1956, after which he returned to CSFA and completed his degree. Immediately following his undergraduate studies (M.F.A., 1961), Light became one of the first students to enroll in the graduate program at CSFA. Upon graduation, he was hired as an instructor, working alongside colleagues Elmer Bischoff, Bruce McGaw, and Jack Jefferson. He shared a basement studio with sculptor Manuel Neri on Vallejo Street in North Beach, beneath Caffe Trieste. Light became director of the graduate department of painting and sculpture from 1966 to 1972, when he was diagnosed with lupus, and he remained on the staff of the Art Institute until his death in 1980.

July 1963 dates from when the artist left his North Beach basement for a more spacious studio on Clay Street in San Francisco, an airy space that lent itself to grander compositions. Seen in the round, July 1963 extends fully into three dimensions, occupying a space that stretches more than ten feet high. Figure-eight forms punctuated with areas of inlaid wood swell into open, irregular negative space, ending in distended, knobby joints. A complex three-part configuration, the sculpture’s base is firmly planted on the floor, without a pedestal, with two supporting legs that rejoin in the central, most voluminous passage of the sculpture. The middle portion resembles a looped series of appendages, cradling a large mass of wood connected to the arms with sinewy, slim fingers. Glossy medium-dark polished driftwood expanses are grafted onto lighter curved and incised twists of hardwood, borrowing the appearance of a duodenum or the inner working of a knee. The top-most portion of July 1963 corresponds to the neck and head of a human body, with spiraling arcs crowned by a beaklike form that extends the line and its energy into space.

Throughout his career Light demonstrated integrity of vision; in many ways, he carried on the values taught to him by his craftsman grandfather by the lake in New Hampshire. Light is responsible for translating the values of Bay Area abstract expressionism into the sculptural realm, providing multiple points of entry for the composition and an emphasis on continuous movement and non-hierarchical form. His organic sculptures emerge from the ground like chthonic deities, tracing complex lines in space, their restless power undeniable. —J.N.

1. Thomas Albright, Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–1980 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 51.
2. Charles Shere, The Expressive Sculpture of Alvin Light (Monterey, Calif.: Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, 1990), 8.

(SJMA Selections publication, 2004)


Enrolled in the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) in 1951 and ended up spending the rest of his life there as a teacher after his student years.
He has had a major solo exhibition at the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art in 1990.
His work is associated to the San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism due to its rugged, earthy qualities, organic shapes, non-objective subject matter, as well  as its strength of expression.
His sculpture is also related to the California Funk movement through its use of assembled found objects and joined additive elements.


Your current search criteria is: Artist is "Alvin Light".