Robert Klippel
Encyclopedia
Robert Klippel AO was an Australian constructivist
sculptor and teacher. He is often described in contemporary art literature as Australia's greatest sculptor. Throughout his career he produced some 1,300 pieces of sculpture and approximately 5,000 drawings.
on 19 June 1920. At the age of six he made his first model ship after being taken on a ferry ride on Sydney Harbour. Model making became a passion. He trained to work in the wool industry but in 1939 he joined the Royal Australian Navy
. He was employed to make models of planes while he was serving in the Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships at the Gunnery Instruction Centre during World War II.
While working at the centre he was able to attend evening classes in sculpture under Lyndon Dadswell at East Sydney Technical College
and after his military discharge, was able to attend for a full year.
His parents' business was successful and with their support, he left Australia in 1947 to study at the Slade School of Fine Art
where he remained for six months. He lived and painted at The Abbey Arts Centre
in New Barnet
, London, along with artists Leonard French
, James Gleeson
, Peter Benjamin Graham
, Douglas Green, Stacha Halpern
, Grahame King
and Inge King
. In November 1948, Klippel, Gleeson and the young Lucian Freud
exhibited together in London. André Breton
, the originator of Surrealism
, arranged for Klippel's work to be exhibited in Paris the following year.
He spent a year in Paris where he attended lectures by Jiddu Krishnamurti
. This strengthened a life-long interest in Eastern religion and philosophy, Buddhism
, Hinduism
, and Zen
. After 18 months in Paris, Klippel returned to Australia in 1950.
In 1957 he sailed to the United States, living in New York in 1957. He taught sculpture at the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design
) from 1958 to 1962 and returned to New York until 1963. He then returned to Sydney, where he remained until his death. He taught at Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education
from 1975 to 1979
In 1988 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia
for his services to art.
He died in Sydney on his 81st birthday, 19 June 2001.
While in London, he met other expatriate Australians including the surrealist painter James Gleeson
. The two collaborated on several works, including ‘Madame Sophie Sesostoris’ (1947-48), a Pre-Raphaelite satire, combining Klippel's sculpture with Gleeson's painting. For a time, Klippel embraced the surrealist ethic, exhibiting at a major surrealist show and meeting André Breton
.
During his time in London, he began a series of drawings and filled his notebooks with analytical diagrams of organic and mechanical objects, everything from screws and cogs to insects and shells, and making detailed drawings of the anthropomorphic forms used by artists such as Henry Moore
and Pablo Picasso
. Whereas Moore had related the human figure to the forms of nature, Klippel set out to relate the forms of nature to the shapes and forms of machinery in an industrial society. He made the statement that he wished "to seek the inter-relationship between the cogwheel and the bud."
By the time Klippel returned to Sydney in 1950, he was committed to construction as a method and was producing totally abstract sculptures. His work was received with little enthusiasm in Australia at first, with his first sculptural work was not selling in his country until 1956. Forced to work full-time, his production dropped to a mere 18 pieces between 1950 and 1957.
By the 1950s Klippel had grown apart from the surrealists and in New York he was invigorated by the rise of abstract expressionism
and the New York School
. He moved away increasingly from traditional sculpture and produced his first junk assemblages in 1960. He began incorporating machine parts, pieces of wood and industrial piping into his works.
In 1964, art critic Robert Hughes
called Klippel "one of the few Australian sculptors worthy of international attention". The statement cemented his international reputation, but he struggled to win acceptance in his own country. During the 1970s and '80s, when the traditional distinctions between sculpture and architecture, design, photography, performance and painting were frequently presented as obsolete, Klippel remained committed to the idea of sculpture as abstract, as occupying sculptural space, and as sustaining in ways beyond literary or narrative function.
Klippel's last decades were extremely prolific. In the 1980s he completed a major series of small bronzes, as well as a large number of monumental wooden assemblages, made from the pattern-parts of early twentieth century maritime machinery. Working with wood, metals, plastics, junk, machinery parts, oils, watercolours and paper, and utilising the techniques of casting, assemblage, painting and collage, he had completed over 1,200 sculptures by the end of the 1990s.
A documentary film, Make It New: A Portrait of the Sculptor Robert Klippel, was produced in 1992.
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
sculptor and teacher. He is often described in contemporary art literature as Australia's greatest sculptor. Throughout his career he produced some 1,300 pieces of sculpture and approximately 5,000 drawings.
Biography
Klippel was born in Potts Point, SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
on 19 June 1920. At the age of six he made his first model ship after being taken on a ferry ride on Sydney Harbour. Model making became a passion. He trained to work in the wool industry but in 1939 he joined the Royal Australian Navy
Royal Australian Navy
The Royal Australian Navy is the naval branch of the Australian Defence Force. Following the Federation of Australia in 1901, the ships and resources of the separate colonial navies were integrated into a national force: the Commonwealth Naval Forces...
. He was employed to make models of planes while he was serving in the Defensively Equipped Merchant Ships at the Gunnery Instruction Centre during World War II.
While working at the centre he was able to attend evening classes in sculpture under Lyndon Dadswell at East Sydney Technical College
College of Fine Arts
The College of Fine Arts is the creative arts faculty of the University of New South Wales and is located on Oxford Street, Paddington, Sydney, Australia.- History :...
and after his military discharge, was able to attend for a full year.
His parents' business was successful and with their support, he left Australia in 1947 to study at the Slade School of Fine Art
Slade School of Fine Art
The Slade School of Fine Art is a world-renownedart school in London, United Kingdom, and a department of University College London...
where he remained for six months. He lived and painted at The Abbey Arts Centre
The Abbey Arts Centre
The Abbey Arts Centre is located at 89 Park Road, New Barnet, Hertfordshire EN4 9QX, England.It was originally owned by William Ohly, an art dealer who ran the Berkeley Galleries in Davies Street, London....
in New Barnet
New Barnet
New Barnet is an area within the London Borough of Barnet. It is a largely residential North London suburb, close to the M25, A1 and M1.-History:...
, London, along with artists Leonard French
Leonard French
Leonard William French OBE is an Australian artist, known principally for major stained glass works.French was born in Brunswick, Victoria...
, James Gleeson
James Gleeson
James Timothy Gleeson was Australia's foremost artist. He was also a poet, critic, writer and curator. He played a significant role in the Australian art scene, including serving on the board of the National Gallery of Australia.-Early life:Gleeson was born in the Sydney district of Hornsby and he...
, Peter Benjamin Graham
Peter Benjamin Graham
Peter Benjamin Graham , was an Australian visual artist, a master craftsman in a variety of printing techniques, and an art theorist. Peter saw no contradiction between abstract and figurative art...
, Douglas Green, Stacha Halpern
Stacha Halpern
Stanislav "Stacha" Halpern was a Polish Australian painter and sculptor. Following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, Halpern emigrated to Australia. A decade later he became a naturalised Australian citizen. Based in Melbourne for much of his early career, Halpern painted bold semi-abstract...
, Grahame King
Grahame King
Grahame King was a prominent Australian printmaker. In the 1930s he helped pioneer the new art of chromo-photo-lithography and transformed developments in the colour advertising in the print industry. Grahame Lectured in Printmaking at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology from 1966-88...
and Inge King
Inge King
Inge King is a prominent Australian sculptor, who has many significant public, commercial, and private sculpture commissions to her credit....
. In November 1948, Klippel, Gleeson and the young Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud
Lucian Michael Freud, OM, CH was a British painter. Known chiefly for his thickly impasted portrait and figure paintings, he was widely considered the pre-eminent British artist of his time...
exhibited together in London. André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, the originator of Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, arranged for Klippel's work to be exhibited in Paris the following year.
He spent a year in Paris where he attended lectures by Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Jiddu Krishnamurti or J. Krishnamurti or , was a renowned writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual subjects. His subject matter included: psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships, and bringing about positive change in society...
. This strengthened a life-long interest in Eastern religion and philosophy, Buddhism
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
, Hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...
, and Zen
Zen
Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...
. After 18 months in Paris, Klippel returned to Australia in 1950.
In 1957 he sailed to the United States, living in New York in 1957. He taught sculpture at the Minneapolis School of Art (now the Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Minneapolis College of Art and Design
Minneapolis College of Art and Design is a private, nonprofit four-year and postgraduate college specializing in the visual arts. Located in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, MCAD currently enrolls approximately 1,000 students offering curriculum that includes...
) from 1958 to 1962 and returned to New York until 1963. He then returned to Sydney, where he remained until his death. He taught at Alexander Mackie College of Advanced Education
College of Fine Arts
The College of Fine Arts is the creative arts faculty of the University of New South Wales and is located on Oxford Street, Paddington, Sydney, Australia.- History :...
from 1975 to 1979
In 1988 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
for his services to art.
He died in Sydney on his 81st birthday, 19 June 2001.
Work
Klippel's work commonly utilized an extraordinary diversity of junk materials: wood, stone, plastic toy kits, wooden pattern parts, typewriter machinery, industrial piping and machine parts, as well as bronze, silver, oils, photography, collage and paper. He is also notable for the great diversity of scale of his work, from intricate whimsical structures in metal to the large wooden assemblages of the 1980s. His mature work was usually untitled, being distinguished by simple number sequences.While in London, he met other expatriate Australians including the surrealist painter James Gleeson
James Gleeson
James Timothy Gleeson was Australia's foremost artist. He was also a poet, critic, writer and curator. He played a significant role in the Australian art scene, including serving on the board of the National Gallery of Australia.-Early life:Gleeson was born in the Sydney district of Hornsby and he...
. The two collaborated on several works, including ‘Madame Sophie Sesostoris’ (1947-48), a Pre-Raphaelite satire, combining Klippel's sculpture with Gleeson's painting. For a time, Klippel embraced the surrealist ethic, exhibiting at a major surrealist show and meeting André Breton
André Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
.
During his time in London, he began a series of drawings and filled his notebooks with analytical diagrams of organic and mechanical objects, everything from screws and cogs to insects and shells, and making detailed drawings of the anthropomorphic forms used by artists such as Henry Moore
Henry Moore
Henry Spencer Moore OM CH FBA was an English sculptor and artist. He was best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures which are located around the world as public works of art....
and Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
. Whereas Moore had related the human figure to the forms of nature, Klippel set out to relate the forms of nature to the shapes and forms of machinery in an industrial society. He made the statement that he wished "to seek the inter-relationship between the cogwheel and the bud."
By the time Klippel returned to Sydney in 1950, he was committed to construction as a method and was producing totally abstract sculptures. His work was received with little enthusiasm in Australia at first, with his first sculptural work was not selling in his country until 1956. Forced to work full-time, his production dropped to a mere 18 pieces between 1950 and 1957.
By the 1950s Klippel had grown apart from the surrealists and in New York he was invigorated by the rise of abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and the New York School
New York School
The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
. He moved away increasingly from traditional sculpture and produced his first junk assemblages in 1960. He began incorporating machine parts, pieces of wood and industrial piping into his works.
In 1964, art critic Robert Hughes
Robert Hughes
-Politicians:*Robert Hughes, Baron Hughes of Woodside , British Labour politician, MP for Aberdeen North*Robert Gurth Hughes , British Conservative politician, MP for Harrow West-Sportsmen:*Robert Hughes , of Stamford FC...
called Klippel "one of the few Australian sculptors worthy of international attention". The statement cemented his international reputation, but he struggled to win acceptance in his own country. During the 1970s and '80s, when the traditional distinctions between sculpture and architecture, design, photography, performance and painting were frequently presented as obsolete, Klippel remained committed to the idea of sculpture as abstract, as occupying sculptural space, and as sustaining in ways beyond literary or narrative function.
Klippel's last decades were extremely prolific. In the 1980s he completed a major series of small bronzes, as well as a large number of monumental wooden assemblages, made from the pattern-parts of early twentieth century maritime machinery. Working with wood, metals, plastics, junk, machinery parts, oils, watercolours and paper, and utilising the techniques of casting, assemblage, painting and collage, he had completed over 1,200 sculptures by the end of the 1990s.
A documentary film, Make It New: A Portrait of the Sculptor Robert Klippel, was produced in 1992.