Peter Shelton | |
|---|---|
 Shelton at Pomona College in 2023 | |
| Born | Peter Shelton January 18, 1951 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Pomona College, Claremont, CA Hobart School of Welding Technology, Troy, Ohio University of California, Los Angeles |
| Known for | Sculpture |
| Movement | Postminimalism |
Peter Shelton is a contemporary American sculptor born in 1951 in Troy, Ohio.
Shelton works in both large and small scale, in metals (steel, iron, lead, bronze), glass, cement, water, paint and a variety of the fiberglass and resin composites first adopted by artists in the late ’60s. His sculptures incorporate both abstracted and figurative forms along with anatomical and architectural motifs.
Shelton has exhibited extensively, including solo shows at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1987; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1994; University of California, Berkeley 1998; the Irish Museum of Modern Art 1998-1999; and Portland Art Museum, 2011. He has participated in group exhibitions at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, University of California, 2009; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL; the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, 2004; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid, Spain, 2004; Tate Gallery Liverpool, England, 1998; and Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, 2006.[1][2]
Shelton has maintained his studio in Los Angeles since 1975. He lives in Venice, California.[3]
Peter Shelton was born in Troy, Ohio, on January 18, 1951.
Shelton spent his early school years in Tempe, Arizona. He was a pre-medical student at Pomona College, Pomona, CA studying sociology, anthropology and theatre, before he received his B.A. in Fine Art in 1973. Shelton went on to earn a trade certificate in welding from the Hobart School of Welding Technology in Troy, Ohio, in 1974, and his M.F.A. from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1979.[2]
Shelton's biography page at the Getty Museum notes that he "draws from a vocabulary both figural and abstract, anatomical and architectural."[4]
Shelton himself describes his work as follows:
I like to think of my work as a threshold between in and out, object and space, heavy and light.[2] How far away from a corner in a room is it no longer a corner? If you are in a pocket, at what point do you pass when you are no longer in the pocket? Language tries to cope with these questions, and often, poorly. ... When I was a young boy, I would ask friends one of my favorite riddles, "What is the difference of an orange?" When my question was met only with puzzled, distorted faces, even irritated silence, I would happily answer "the peel!" What interests me most in my work is the "peelness" of it...[3]
Awards include Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, 1987; John S. Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship; Henry Moore Sculpture Trust, 1989; Flintridge Foundation Visual Artists Award, 1999/2000; and the St. Gaudens Memorial Fellowship, 2000. Shelton is part of collections such as Museum of Modern Art, New York; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Panza Foundation, Milan, Italy; and Museum of Modern Art, Lodz, Poland. Public commissions include ‘’sixbeastsandtwomonkeys’’ for the Police Administration Building in downtown Los Angeles, 2008-2009, ‘’thinmanlittlebird’’ for the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library, 2008-2009, and ‘’cloudsandclunkers’’ at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Concours A), Seattle, WA, 2003.[1][2]
Peter Shelton has exhibited internationally in museums and galleries in over fifty-five solo exhibitions and over one hundred and twenty group shows,[3] including:
