Robert Arneson’s ‘Konk’ Sells for $126,000 at Auction
A central figure of the California Funk Art movement, Arneson’s work was often humorous, drawing viewers into the piece only to reveal something far more complicated going on.
Sculptor Robert Arneson's propensity for questioning tactics and breaking rules are distinguishing characteristics in postwar American art. A central figure of the California Funk Art movement, Arneson and his peers were eager to distance themselves from the non-objectivity of Abstract Expressionism, and to embrace an unorthodox and sometimes rudimentary formalism that was both strange and refreshing.
Arneson created facetious renditions of household wares, anthropomorphic trophies, surrealist self-portrait-busts, and non-utilitarian pots and bricks. Arneson was responsible for generating a pivotal impact on one of art’s central roles, that of raising questions in order to change the way we view the world. His piece, “Konk,” from 1978, sold for $126,000 at Wright Auction, Chicago, in February.
Areneson frequently turned to self-portraiture as a means to examine his relationship with the world, expressing serious thought and difficult emotional content through the filter of a humorous mask. “I can poke fun at myself," Arneson said. "I know myself better than anyone else, and I’m free.”
Arneson was born in Benicia, Calif., in 1930. He studied at the California College of the Arts (then the California College of Arts and Crafts) receiving his BA in 1954 and his MFA in 1958 from Mills College. Arneson became head of the ceramics department at the University of California at Davis in 1962 and a full professor of art in 1973.
He received honorary doctorates from the San Francisco Art Institute and the Rhode Island School of Design, and awards from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, and the American Craft Council. Arneson has had numerous gallery and museum exhibitions including solo-shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, both in 1974, and a 1992 exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia. The artist is in the collections of many august institutions, such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
"Bob's work was autobiography," said Seymour Howard, an art history professor emeritus at UC Davis who wrote a book on autobiography in art. "That's how he talked, that's how he looked, that's how he was."
Arneson's widow, Sandra Shannonhouse, invites people viewing any Arneson work to look beyond what seems to be "edgy, naughty or funny."
"He used humor to draw the viewer into the piece, but there was usually much more going on," she says.
Arneson died in Benicia in 1992. He was 62.
