Artist

David Beck

born Muncie, IN 1953-died San Francisco, CA 2018
Media - portrait_image_113324.jpg - 89914
Photograph by Jon Crispin.
Also known as
  • David Beck
Born
Muncie, Indiana, United States
Died
San Francisco, California, United States
Active in
  • San Francisco, California, United States
  • New York, New York, United States
Nationalities
  • American
Biography
David Beck is influenced by crank toys, whirligigs, and eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mechanical robots called automata that delighted, and sometimes tricked, children and adults. An accomplished woodworker, sculptor, painter and craftsman, Beck builds intricate moving sculptures such as operas, band shells, movie houses, and museums. Beck handcrafts each complex component himself using rare materials such as linden and walnut woods, ivories, inlays, lacquers, and mussel and ostrich-egg shells. He is a musician as well as an artist and records many of the sound effects for his pieces.

Videos

Exhibitions

An image of two red and blue birds in a tree at night
The Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art
October 30, 2014–February 22, 2015
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Birds have long been a source of mystery and awe. Today, a growing desire to meaningfully connect with the natural world has fostered a resurgence of popular interest in the winged creatures that surround us daily. The Singing and the Silence: Birds in Contemporary Art examines mankind’s relationship to birds and the natural world through the eyes of twelve major contemporary American artists, including David Beck, Rachel Berwick, Lorna Bieber, Barbara Bosworth, Joann Brennan, Petah Coyne, Walton Ford, Paula McCartney, James Prosek, Laurel Roth Hope, Fred Tomaselli, and Tom Uttech.