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David Diao
Born1943
Chengdu, China[1]
NationalityAmerican
Known forPainting
MovementLyrical Abstraction, Hard-Edge Painting, Pop art
ElectedNational Academy (2012)

David Diao (born 1943) is a Chinese American artist and teacher based in New York City.[2]

Background

Diao 刁德谦 was born in Chengdu, in China. Several years of his childhood were spent in Hong Kong, at the moment of the revolution in October 1949, before he ultimately settled in the United States.[1] His father was a student in the US and later became a structural engineer. He joined him in NY in 1955, being 12 years old.

Career

Diao completed his undergraduate degree at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio and in 1964 he moved back to New York. There he began working as an artist in the late 1960s. Firstly, he got the job as the sweeper-upper at the Kootz Gallery. Sam Kootz, the owner of this gallery, was among the first to show Abstract Expressionism. In 1966 he worked at the Guggenheim, where he installed shows in case some extra help was necessary.[3]

He first won acclaim and public attention with an exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery in 1969. He is known for his simplification of form, minimal compositions, and uses of stylized text and typography.[4]

Diao has served on the faculty at Hampshire College where he met Walid Raad, with whom he has collaborated. Diao's work was included at dOCUMENTA 13.[5] His work is featured in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,[6] MoMA,[7] the Whitney Museum of American Art,[8] SFMOMA,[9] Rennes's public council collection, among others. Diao taught at the Cooper Union in the early 70s and was then mostly doing color field painting made by squeegying paint across a large canvas. In 2008 he had his first exhibition in China. In 2012, he was elected into the National Academy of Design.[1][10] He received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award (2015).[11]

Diao is currently represented by Greene Naftali, New York; Tanya Leighton, Berlin; and Office Baroque, Brussels.

Past Shows

References

  1. ^ a b c Preview of Symposium: “Which Way Up?”, 2015[permanent dead link]
  2. ^ "Artist David Diao to Speak March 8 as Part of Visiting Artist Lecture Series". pratt.edu. Retrieved August 6, 2011.
  3. ^ title David Diao by Matthew Deleget
  4. ^ a b Diao on Artsy
  5. ^ Waltemath, Joan (June 2012). "David Diao and Walid Raad". The Brooklyn Rail.
  6. ^ "David Diao". Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  7. ^ "MoMA Collection". MoMA. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  8. ^ "Whitney Museum of American Art : Artists in the collection". Whitney Museum of American Art. Archived from the original on 23 November 2013. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  9. ^ "Scarface". SFMOMA. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  10. ^ "National Academicians". National Academy. Retrieved 20 January 2014.
  11. ^ "David Diao :: Foundation for Contemporary Arts". www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org. Retrieved 2018-04-19.
  12. ^ "New York: The Eighties; Part Two (extended version)". Archived from the original on 2020-11-29.
  13. ^ "New York: The 1980s; Part II". Archived from the original on 2020-10-20.

External links


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