Alexander Liberman. Photo by Irving Penn 1960
Liberman, not wanting to limit himself to any one form of expression, worked to produce radically minimalist paintings and sculpture in order to illuminate his beliefs about celestial motion, the movement of the eye, as well as human sexuality.
Considered a revolutionary Minimalist artist, Alexander Liberman produced works that predated the movement by more than a decade. The artist’s fascination with American industrialization and modernization ultimately resulted in his widely known red steel sculptures and geometric paintings, which seem to decompose the turbulence of the time period.
A pioneer in the creation of monumentally scaled abstract sculpture, Alexander Liberman's colossally scaled compositions are constructed from discarded tank drums, boiler heads, giant pipes, and steel beams. They are cut and sliced to evoke baroque sculpture and architectural models, from grain silos to Greek temples and medieval cathedrals.
Liberman's sculpture and paintings are included in the collections of some of the world's most prestigious museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Museum of Modern Art, the Corcoran, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. In addition, Storm King Art Center, the most important contemporary sculpture park in America, has three monumental Liberman sculptures in its collection. His public sculpture can be seen in over 40 cities around the world, including three that are located in Los Angeles.
Alexander Liberman passed away in 1999.