James Rosenquist working on 'Through the Eye of the Needle to the Anvil', Aripeka, Florida. Photo by Russ Blaise.
Gallery of James Rosenquist
1989
James Rosenquist airbrushing mylar for lithography collage element for ‘Skull Snap’ from his ‘Welcome to the water planet’ series. Photo by Marabeth Cohen-Tyler.
Gallery of James Rosenquist
1989
James Rosenquist assisted by Kenneth Tyler using a pattern pistol to spray red colored paper pulp through plastic stencil on newly made paper pulp sheet in paper mill with hydraulic platen press in background. Photo by Marabeth Cohen-Tyler.
Gallery of James Rosenquist
1991
John Hutcheson (left) and James Rosenquist working with mylar to prepare lithographic elements for Rosenquist’s ‘Time Dust’. Photo by Marabeth Cohen-Tyler.
Gallery of James Rosenquist
2012
James Rosenquist in his Spring Hill studio.
Gallery of James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist talks about some of his artistic concepts near one of his works at his Aripeka studio in 2008.
Gallery of James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist posing.
Gallery of James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist in his studio.
Gallery of James Rosenquist
James Rosenquist in his studio. Photo by Jimm Roberts.
Achievements
‘Be Beautiful’ by James Rosenquist purchased at Sotheby's in New York City for $3,301,000 in 2014.
James Rosenquist airbrushing mylar for lithography collage element for ‘Skull Snap’ from his ‘Welcome to the water planet’ series. Photo by Marabeth Cohen-Tyler.
James Rosenquist assisted by Kenneth Tyler using a pattern pistol to spray red colored paper pulp through plastic stencil on newly made paper pulp sheet in paper mill with hydraulic platen press in background. Photo by Marabeth Cohen-Tyler.
John Hutcheson (left) and James Rosenquist working with mylar to prepare lithographic elements for Rosenquist’s ‘Time Dust’. Photo by Marabeth Cohen-Tyler.
James Rosenquist was one of the most influential American artists within the Pop art genre. He discovered the impact of the consumer culture on art and society through his works.
Background
James Rosenquist was born on November 29, 1933 in Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States. He was the only child of Louis and Ruth Rosenquist.
His parents were amateur pilots of Swedish descent who moved from town to town to look for work, finally settling in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. His mother was also a painter and encouraged her son to have an artistic interest.
Education
In junior high school Rosenquist won a short-term scholarship to study at the Minneapolis School of Art (now Minneapolis College of Art and Design) and subsequently studied painting at the University of Minnesota from 1952 to 1954. In 1955, at the age of 21, he moved to New York City on scholarship to study at the Art Students League, studying under painters such as Edwin Dickinson and George Grosz.
Rosenquist’s career in commercial art began when he was 18, after his mother encouraged him to pursue a summer job painting. He started by painting Phillips 66 signs, going to gas stations from North Dakota to Wisconsin.
While studying in New York, Rosenquist took up a job as a chauffeur, before deciding to turn to painting. From 1957 to 1960 Rosenquist painted billboards around Times Square, ultimately becoming the lead painter for Artkraft‐Strauss and painting displays and windows across Fifth Avenue. By 1960, Rosenquist abandoned painting signs after a friend passed away by falling from scaffolding on the job. Instead of working on commercial pieces, he chose to focus on personal projects in his own studio, developing his own distinct style of painting that retained the kind of imagery, bold hues, and scale that he utilized while he painted billboards. Like other pop artists, Rosenquist adapted the visual language of advertising and pop culture to the context of fine art.
Rosenquist had his first two solo exhibitions at the Green Gallery in 1962 and 1963.
In 1971 Rosenquist came to South Florida after receiving an offer from Donald Saff, dean of the University of South Florida’s College of Fine Arts, to participate in the school’s Graphicstudio, a collaborative art initiative. In the years following Rosenquist remained a key contributor to the studio, cooperating with students and other artists and producing numerous works of his own, ultimately creating his Aripeka studio in 1976.
During his career, Rosenquist had solo exhibitions at many of the most prestigious museums, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
In 2009 a fire destroyed his home, office and studio space in Aripeka, Florida, United States. A number of his works were lost.
James Rosenquist died on March 31, 2017 at his home in New York City, United States, after a long illness; he was 83 years old.
Quotations:
“I studied only with the abstract artists. They had commercial artists there teaching commercial work, I didn’t bother with that. I was only interested in - see, here’s how it started. I was interested in learning how to paint the Sistine Chapel. It sounds ambitious, but I wanted to go to mural school."
"I painted billboards above every candy store in Brooklyn. I got so I could paint a Schenley whiskey bottle in my sleep."
"They (art critics) called me a Pop artist because I used recognizable imagery. The critics like to group people together. I didn't meet Andy Warhol until 1964. I did not really know Andy or Roy Lichtenstein that well. We all emerged separately."
"To be creative is to be accepting, but it’s also to be harsh on one’s self. You just don’t paint colors for the silliness of it all."
"Paintings are memories. Memories of the painter who painted them. Memories that can be shared as well. Paintings are things to remember things by."
Membership
James Rosenquist was a member of the International Brotherhood of Painters and Allied Trades.
Connections
Rosenquist married twice and had two children. With his first wife, Mary Lou Adams, whom he married on June 5, 1960, he had a son, John. But his first marriage ended in divorce.
In 1976, a year after his divorce, Rosenquist moved to Aripeka, Florida. His second wife was Mimi Thompson, whom he married on April 18, 1987, by whom he had a daughter, Lily. Besides, Rosenquist had a grandson, Oscar.
Father:
Louis Rosenquist
Mother:
Ruth Rosenquist
ex-wife:
Mary Lou Adams
Son:
John Rosenquist
Wife:
Mimi Thompson
Daughter:
Lily Rosenquist
Grandson:
Oscar Rosenquist
teacher:
Edwin Walter Dickinson
teacher:
George Grosz
References
James Rosenquist: Four Decades, 1970–2010
James Rosenquist: Four Decades, published to accompany an exhibition at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, offers a selective survey of the artist’s work since the 1970s, touching on themes as multifaceted as aesthetics, geopolitics, technology, ecology, outer space and time travel.
2017
James Rosenquist: Painting as Immersion
A monograph on the great Pop Art master, this book shows how the artist's large-scale works and their source materials remain powerful and relevant as cultural and political commentary.
2018
James Rosenquist
A monograph published simultaneously with a 1985 retrospective exhibition of the artist.
1985
James Rosenquist: A Retrospective
This momentous catalog, published to accompany the first in-depth survey of the artist's work since 1972, will give long-overdue, in-depth attention to Rosenquist's singular achievement in American art.
2003
James Rosenquist
This substantial catalogue is a major addition to existing scholarship on the important American artist James Rosenquist.