Mark Lindquist

Mark Lindquist
Born1949 (age 76–77)
Oakland, California
EducationNew England College BA, Pratt Institute,
Florida State University MFA
Known forSculpture, Photography
SpouseKathleen Bragg Lindquist
AwardsMacDowell Colony
Fellowship 1980,
Fellow, National Endowment for the Arts/Southern Arts Federation 1989,
Fellow, American Craft Council 2007
Honorary Lifetime Member, American Association of Woodturners, 2010

Mark Lindquist (born 1949) is an American sculptor in wood, artist, author, and photographer. Lindquist is a major figure in the redirection and resurgence of woodturning in the United States beginning in the early 1970s. His communication of his ideas through teaching, writing, and exhibiting, has resulted in many of his pioneering aesthetics and techniques becoming common practice. In the exhibition catalog for a 1995 retrospective of Lindquist's works at the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, his contributions to woodturning and wood sculpture are described as "so profound and far-reaching that they have reconstituted the field". He has often been credited with being the first turner to synthesize the disparate and diverse influences of the craft field with that of the fine arts world.

Early achievements

Lindquist's work is characterized by an empathy with the natural aesthetics of wood, technical innovation, and art historical connections. Among his notable early achievements was the introduction of the aesthetic of Asian ceramics into American woodturning. Along with his father, wood-turning pioneer Mel Lindquist, he also developed new tools and techniques that expanded the vocabulary of woodturning, and pioneered the use of spalted wood. In the early 1980s, he applied techniques he had developed for large-scale woodturning to create his massive, textured "Totemic Series Sculptures," in the Modernist tradition of Brâncuși.

Ichiboku series

Beginning in 1985, Lindquist created his "Ichiboku series" sculptures: six- to eight-foot-tall (1.8–2.4 m) sculptures from a single block of wood, applying the philosophy and techniques of ninth-century Japanese Buddhist woodcarving to the formal concepts of Modernism. Unlike his earlier works, woodturning was not the primary method for their creation. These sculptures were exhibited in 1990 along with seven other influential sculptors of the decade (including Raoul Hague and Ursula von Rydingsvard). Lindquist's "Ichiboku" sculptures distinguished themselves from others in the exhibition, and from the work of most wood artists of the time, by their identification with the spirit of the tree, a concept he adopted from the Japanese. Rather than imposing an external idea upon the wood, he "was engaged in a dialogue with trees"; This approach was antithetical to the mainstream of 20th-century art, which was intellectually removed from the appreciation of nature.

Public collections

Lindquist's work can be found on permanent display in many American museums and public collections including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C., Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Yale University Art Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Honors and awards

Publications

References

  1. 1 2 "Lindquist biography". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2009-02-06.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Adamson, Glen; Cooke, Edward S. Jr. (July 1, 2003). Wood Turning in America Since 1930. Milan, Italy: Wood Turning Center and Yale University Art Gallery. ISBN 978-0-89467-094-7.
  3. 1 2 3 Ulmer, Sean; Blackburn, Janice; Martin, Terry; McFadden, David Revere (2004). Nature Transformed. New York, New York: Hudson Hills. p. 170. ISBN 978-1-930561-08-3.
  4. 1 2 Hobbs, Robert Carlton (January 1996). Mark Lindquist: Revolutions in Wood. University of Washington Press. ISBN 978-0-295-97506-1.
  5. ↑ Leach, Mark Richard; Monroe, Michael W.; Ramljak, Suzanne (2000). A Passion for Wood (Monroe essay) Turning Wood into Art : The Jane and Arthur Mason Collection. US / Japan: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-8109-4483-1.
  6. 1 2 3 4 Gear, Josephine (April 1994). Eight Contemporary Sculptors: Beyond Nature, Wood Into Art. The Lowe Art Museum / University of Miami. p. 192.
  7. ↑ Leach, Mark Richard; Monroe, Michael W.; Ramljak, Suzanne (2000). Turning Wood into Art : The Jane and Arthur Mason Collection. US / Japan: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. New York. ISBN 978-0-8109-4483-1.
  8. ↑ Martin, Terry (October 2008). Icons: A Tribute to Mel Lindquist. Hong Kong: Shore Design / Rakova Brecker Gallery. pp. 1–12, 20–28.
  9. ↑ Lindquist, Mark (1990) [1986]. Sculpting Wood: Contemporary Tools and Techniques. U.S.: Davis Publications Inc., and Sterling Press. ISBN 978-0-87192-228-1.
  10. ↑ "Mark Lindquist: Sculptor in Wood". Smithsonian American Art Museum (formerly National Museum of American Art). c. 1995. Archived from the original on March 31, 2012. Retrieved 2009-02-11.
  11. ↑ Paul J., Smith; Edward Lucie-Smith (1993). American Craft Today: Poetry of the Physical. Japan: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, New York. p. 71. ISBN 978-1-55584-023-5.
  12. ↑ Cooke, Edward; Davira S. Taragin (1993). The Saxe Collection. Hudson Hills Press. pp. 149–199. ISBN 978-1-55595-073-6.
  13. ↑ Nelson, Hal (November 2006). The Presence of Absence: Exploring the Void in Contemporary Wood Sculpture. US: Collectors of Wood Art (Organization). pp. Exhibition Catalog.
  14. ↑ "Mark Lindquist: Exhibition Index". Smithsonian Institution (formerly National Museum of American Art). 1995. Archived from the original on March 31, 2012. Retrieved 2009-02-09.
  15. ↑ "Luce Foundation Center for American Art". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 2009-02-09.[permanent dead link]
  16. 1 2 3 Koplos, Janet (April 1990). "Review: Mark Lindquist at Franklin Parrasch". Art in America. 78 (4).
  17. ↑ Hobbs, Robert (March–April 1990). "Mark Lindquist: Franklin Parrasch Gallery, NY (Review)". Sculpture. 9 (2).
  18. ↑ Lindquist, Mark (November 1, 2001). "Reinventing Sculpture". Wood Turning In North America Since 1930 - Symposium II. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts: Wood Turning Center, PA / Yale University, CT.