Tom Wesselmann American, 1931-2004

Acclaimed as one of the central figures of the Pop art movement, American artist Tom Wesselmann, is celebrated for his female nude and still life representations. Originally intending to pursue a career as a cartoonist, he moved to New York and enrolled in the Cooper Union university to devote himself entirely to art, obtaining his diploma in 1959. Although he greatly admired Robert Motherwell and Willem de Kooning, Tom Wesselmann rejected abstract expressionism in favour of a more traditional iconography. In 1961 he turned to large-scale painting with his best-known series "Great American Nudes" featuring naked women and everyday objects in an all-American red, white and blue palette. As his career progressed, not only did he start to shape his canvases according to the composition as is the case for his iconic "Smokers", but he also began to use metallic surfaces as supports. He further developed his "Still Life" paintings by spreading the very same composition across multiple canvases. Throughout the 90s until his death, he confronted his early themes through bold, abstract three-dimensional images that came to reflect what he was aiming for at the beginning of his career. Today his works can be found in the major public collections such as the MoMA in New York, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, and the Tate in London, amongst others.