Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Artist of the day, August 29: Alexander Liberman, Russian-American magazine editor, publisher, painter, photographer, and sculptor

Alexander Semeonovitch Liberman (1912 – 1999) was a Russian-American magazine editor, publisher, painter, photographer, and sculptor. He held senior artistic positions during his 32 years at Condé Nast Publications.

When his father took a post advising the Soviet government, the family moved to Moscow. Life there became difficult, and his father secured permission from Lenin and the Politburo to take his son to London in 1921.

Young Liberman was educated in Russia, England, and France, where he took up life as a "White Émigré" in Paris. He began his publishing career in Paris in 1933–36 with the early pictorial magazine Vu, where he worked under Lucien Vogel as art director, then managing editor, working with photographers such as Brassaï, André Kertész, and Robert Capa. After emigrating to New York in 1941, he began working for Condé Nast Publications, rising to the position of editorial director, which he held from 1962-1994.

Only in the 1950s did Liberman take up painting and, later, metal sculpture. His highly recognizable sculptures are assembled from industrial objects (segments of steel I-beams, pipes, drums, and such), often painted in uniform bright colors. In a 1986 interview concerning his formative years as a sculptor and his aesthetic, Liberman said, "I think many works of art are screams, and I identify with screams." Prominent examples of his work are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Storm King Art Center, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park, Tate Gallery, and the Guggenheim Museum. His massive work "The Way", a 65 feet (20 m) x 102 feet (31 m) x 100 feet (30 m) structure, is made of eighteen salvaged steel oil tanks, and became a signature piece of Laumeier Sculpture Park, and a major landmark of St. Louis, Missouri.

© 2018. All images are copyrighted © by Alexander Liberman or assignee. The use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained.



Mr Alexander Liberman

Liberman studio

1950, Two circles

1952, Beat

1952, Path IV

1952, Time

1959, Black White Grey

1959, Revolving

1961, Omicron IX

1961, Omicron V

1961, Omicron VII

1961, untitled

1962, Air

1962, Black-Yellow

1962, Great Mysteries II

1962, Socrates

1962, Untitled Abstract

1962, untitled

1964, Black Curve

1964, Untitled

1965, Offering Circa

1966, Realms

1967, Axeltree

1969, Bond

1970, Adam

1970-71 , Adonai 

1970-71 , Adonai

1970-71 , Adonai

1972, Gate of Hope

1973, Open Triad VIII

1974 Argo (Milwaukee Museum of Art)

1974 Argo

1974 Argo

1974 Argo

1974-75, Iliad

1976, Surge

1976, Surge

1977, Erg Series

1979, Aria

1979, Untitled

1980, The way

1980, The way

1980, Untitled, From Aim Series

1980, Untitled

1981, Andromeda

1982, Untitled

1983, Symbol

1984, Archway II

1984, Olympic Iliad

1984, Untitled

1987, Aim

1987, Aim

1987, Aim

1987, Aim

Abra (Unknown date)

Accord (Unknown date)

Accord (Unknown date)

Archway II construction

Orbits Variation


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