Scott Burton
Encyclopedia
Scott Burton was an American
sculptor
and performance artist best known for his large-scale furniture sculptures in granite
and bronze
.
to Walter Scott Burton, Jr. and Hortense Mobley Burton. While Burton was a child, his parents separated and Burton relocated to Washington, DC. with his mother.
Burton began his artistic career at the Washington Workshop of the Arts in the mid-1950s, before progressing to the Hans Hofmann
School of Fine Arts in Provincetown, Massachusetts
. Between 1959 and 1962 Burton took classes at Goddard College
in Plainfield, Vermont
, George Washington University
in Washington, D.C., Harvard University
, and Columbia University
, where he finally received his Bachelor's Degree. In 1963 Burton was awarded a Master of Fine Arts
degree from New York University
in New York City.
, which allowed him to befriend prominent artists and writers such as Edward Albee
, Jerome Robbins
, Lincoln Kirstein
, and Alex Katz
. With the help of these connections Burton began writing for Artnews
in the mid-1960s, and by the end of the decade Burton had begun collaborating on conceptual art
and performance pieces with artists such as Vito Acconci
and Eduardo Costa
.
In 1970, Burton began experimenting in furniture-based work while a guest lecturer at the University of Iowa
. Burton participated in a two evening assembly of performances and installation art
, Two Evenings. On the first evening he staged a performance, Ten Tableaux: Theater as Sculpture, and on the second evening exhibited the outdoor installation work, Furniture/Landscape. This was his first use of furniture.
Like many of the artists he befriended, one of Burton's primary artistic concerns was the dissolution of aesthetic boundaries, especially the traditional boundary between fine art and utilitarian design. The art historian Robert Rosenblum
described Burton as "...singular and unique as a person as he was as an artist. His fiercely laconic work destroyed the boundaries between furniture and sculpture, between private delectation and public use and radically altered the way we see many 20th-century masters, including Gerrit Rietveld
and Brancusi.
Burton's sculptures frequently took the form of chairs and tables that, when not being exhibited, were used as functional furniture objects. Influenced by early 20th-century Modernist
movements such as De Stijl
and Bauhaus
, Burton's furniture sculptures combined the geometric, abstract forms of Minimalism
with "a sense of utility, history and wit".
on December 29, 1989, at Cabrini Medical Center
in New York City. He was survived by no immediate family.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
and performance artist best known for his large-scale furniture sculptures in granite
Granite
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...
and bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
.
Early years
Burton was born in Greensboro, AlabamaGreensboro, Alabama
Greensboro is a city in Hale County, Alabama, United States. At the 2000 census the population was 2,731. The city is the county seat of Hale County. It is part of the Tuscaloosa, Alabama Metropolitan Statistical Area.-History:...
to Walter Scott Burton, Jr. and Hortense Mobley Burton. While Burton was a child, his parents separated and Burton relocated to Washington, DC. with his mother.
Burton began his artistic career at the Washington Workshop of the Arts in the mid-1950s, before progressing to the Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann
Hans Hofmann was a German-born American abstract expressionist painter.-Biography:Hofmann was born in Weißenburg, Bavaria on March 21, 1880, the son of Theodor and Franziska Hofmann. When he was six he moved with his family to Munich...
School of Fine Arts in Provincetown, Massachusetts
Provincetown, Massachusetts
Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 3,431 at the 2000 census, with an estimated 2007 population of 3,174...
. Between 1959 and 1962 Burton took classes at Goddard College
Goddard College
Goddard College is a private, liberal arts college located in Plainfield, Vermont, offering undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Goddard College currently operates on an intensive low-residency model...
in Plainfield, Vermont
Plainfield, Vermont
Plainfield is a town in Washington County, Vermont, United States. The population was 1,286 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Plainfield is located at ....
, George Washington University
George Washington University
The George Washington University is a private, coeducational comprehensive university located in Washington, D.C. in the United States...
in Washington, D.C., Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, where he finally received his Bachelor's Degree. In 1963 Burton was awarded a Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
degree from New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
in New York City.
Art career
While living in New York City, Burton worked at the membership desk of the Museum of Modern ArtMuseum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
, which allowed him to befriend prominent artists and writers such as Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
, Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins was an American theater producer, director, and choreographer known primarily for Broadway Theater and Ballet/Dance, but who also occasionally directed films and directed/produced for television. His work has included everything from classical ballet to contemporary musical theater...
, Lincoln Kirstein
Lincoln Kirstein
Lincoln Edward Kirstein was an American writer, impresario, art connoisseur, and cultural figure in New York City...
, and Alex Katz
Alex Katz
Alex Katz is an American figurative artist associated with the Pop art movement. In particular, he is known for his paintings, sculptures, and prints and is represented by numerous galleries internationally.-Life and work:...
. With the help of these connections Burton began writing for Artnews
ARTnews
ARTnews is an arts magazine based in New York, founded by James Clarence Hyde in 1902 as Hyde’s Weekly Art News. It is published 11 times a year.ARTnews covers all art, from ancient to Post-modernism...
in the mid-1960s, and by the end of the decade Burton had begun collaborating on conceptual art
Conceptual art
Conceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
and performance pieces with artists such as Vito Acconci
Vito Acconci
Vito Hannibal Acconci is a Bronx, New York-born, Brooklyn-based designer, landscape architect, performance and installation artist.-Education:...
and Eduardo Costa
Eduardo Costa
Eduardo Nascimento Costa , known as Eduardo Costa or simply Eduardo, is a Brazilian professional footballer. He currently plays as a defensive midfielder for Vasco da Gama.- Career :...
.
In 1970, Burton began experimenting in furniture-based work while a guest lecturer at the University of Iowa
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa is a public state-supported research university located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It is the oldest public university in the state. The university is organized into eleven colleges granting undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees...
. Burton participated in a two evening assembly of performances and installation art
Installation art
Installation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
, Two Evenings. On the first evening he staged a performance, Ten Tableaux: Theater as Sculpture, and on the second evening exhibited the outdoor installation work, Furniture/Landscape. This was his first use of furniture.
Like many of the artists he befriended, one of Burton's primary artistic concerns was the dissolution of aesthetic boundaries, especially the traditional boundary between fine art and utilitarian design. The art historian Robert Rosenblum
Robert Rosenblum
Robert Rosenblum was an American art historian and curator known for his influential and often irreverent scholarship on European and American art of the mid-eighteenth to 20th century....
described Burton as "...singular and unique as a person as he was as an artist. His fiercely laconic work destroyed the boundaries between furniture and sculpture, between private delectation and public use and radically altered the way we see many 20th-century masters, including Gerrit Rietveld
Gerrit Rietveld
Gerrit Thomas Rietveld was a Dutch furniture designer and architect. One of the principal members of the Dutch artistic movement called De Stijl, Rietveld is famous for his Red and Blue Chair and for the Rietveld Schröder House, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.-Biography:Rietveld was born in...
and Brancusi.
Burton's sculptures frequently took the form of chairs and tables that, when not being exhibited, were used as functional furniture objects. Influenced by early 20th-century Modernist
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
movements such as De Stijl
De Stijl
De Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
and Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
, Burton's furniture sculptures combined the geometric, abstract forms of Minimalism
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
with "a sense of utility, history and wit".
Death
Burton died of complications due to AIDSAIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
on December 29, 1989, at Cabrini Medical Center
Cabrini Medical Center
Cabrini Medical Center of New York City was created in the late 20th century by a merger of two Manhattan hospitals. It closed in 2008 due to financial difficulties....
in New York City. He was survived by no immediate family.