Tony DeLap is an American artist and sculptor, who represents Minimalism and Op Art movements. He spent more than half a century, creating meticulously crafted, illusionistic abstract sculptures, that challenge perception with their teasing, shifting shapes, forms and sense of depth.
Background
Tony DeLap was born on November 4, 1927 in Oakland, California, United States. He is a son of Truman Henry DeLap and Catherine (Yontz) DeLap. Tony's aunt, Rose Abbott, was a fairly active collector of Indian art and artifacts of the Southwest.
Education
Tony attended several colleges, including Menlo College, Academy of Art College (present-day Academy of Art University) in San Francisco and Claremont Graduate University.
During the period from 1951 to 1963, he acted as a muralist, color consultant, exhibition designer, interior designer, architect and graphic designer. In 1962, he took part in a group show together with Roy De Forest, Fred Martin and Nell Sinton at the San Francisco Museum of Art. Two years later, in 1964, DeLap was appointed a guest instructor in painting and design at the Claremont Colleges in Southern California.
Also, in 1964, Tony started to work as an assistant professor of art at the University of California in Davis, a position he held until 1965, when he became an associate professor of art at the University of California in Irvine. Tony worked at the university until 1991.
Since 1965, DeLap participated in numerous museum exhibitions around the United States, including exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Museum of Art, La Jolla Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, Jewish Museum in New York and others. During his lifetime, he also held several retrospectives at different museums, including Orange County Museum of Art in 2000, San Jose Museum of art in 2001 and Oceanside Museum of Art in 2013. In 2018, the Laguna Museum of Art mounted a major retrospective of DeLap’s work, dating from 1961 to present.
Tony DeLap is a member of the Southern California art community.
Personality
Tony DeLap is an excellent cook, specializing in Far Eastern cuisine. He is a "family man", who tries to spend as much time as possible with his wife and children.
Connections
Tony married Kathleen Rose Campbell on December 27, 1964. Their marriage produced two children — Kelly Rose and Jack Henry.