Artist

Paul Thek

born New York City 1933-died New York City 1988
Media - portrait_image_113845.jpg - 90452
Photography by Peter Hujar, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, Peter Hujar Archive, LLC.
Born
New York, New York, United States
Died
New York, New York, United States
Biography

Paul Thek appreciated the beauty in all things, even those that might appear repulsive to others. In the early 1950s he studied at the Art Students League and the Pratt Institute in New York. He mostly did paintings and drawings until the mid-1960s, when he began making wax sculptures that looked like raw meat or human limbs. He drew inspiration from ancient crypts he saw in Sicily, where “bodies [were] used to decorate a room, like flowers.” Thek eventually abandoned his grotesque imagery and resumed drawing and painting. He also constructed room-size installations of sand, newspaper, and trees. The subject of Thek’s earlier “meat” sculptures and his preference for unstable materials later in his career reveal his lifelong concern with the passing of time and the vulnerability of human flesh.

Works by this artist (7 items)

William Hunter, Golden Shell, 1994, satinwood, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur and Charles Bresler in honor of Kenneth R. Trapp, curator-in-charge of the Renwick Gallery (1995--2003), 2003.60.24, © 1994, William Hunter
Golden Shell
Date1994
satinwood
Not on view
William Hunter, Visions, 1987, cocobolo, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Jane and Arthur K. Mason, 1991.169.4, © 1987, William Hunter
Visions
Date1987
cocobolo
Not on view
Marianne Hunter, William Hunter, Africa, 1990, satinwood, ebony, 24k gold, sterling silver, fine silver, enamel, and rutilated quartz, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur and Charles Bresler in honor of Kenneth R. Trapp, curator-in-charge of the Renwick Gallery (1995--2003), 2003.60.27A-C, © 1990, William and Marianne Hunter
Africa
Date1990
satinwood, ebony, 24k gold, sterling silver, fine silver, enamel, and rutilated quartz
Not on view
Marianne Hunter, William Hunter, Evening Blossom, 1989, ebony, 24k gold, sterling silver, enamel, amethyst, and charoite, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur and Charles Bresler in honor of Kenneth R. Trapp, curator-in-charge of the Renwick Gallery (1995--2003), 2003.60.26A-C, © 1989, William and Marianne Hunter
Evening Blossom
Date1989
ebony, 24k gold, sterling silver, enamel, amethyst, and charoite
Not on view

Exhibitions

Martha Rosler, Red Strip Kitchen
Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965 – 1975
March 15, 2019August 18, 2019
Artists Respond: American Art and the Vietnam War, 1965-1975 makes vivid an era in which artists endeavored to respond to the turbulent times and openly questioned issues central to American civic life.

Related Posts

An image of a leg with a covering over it.
Taking a closer look at Paul Thek's work that investigates the physical body and the body politic.
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