- (1933 - )

California-based artist Stephen de Staebler is probably best known for his fragmented forms, fractured figures and parts of figures that evoke both archeological and metaphysical images. His first interest in art was in painting and drawing, but as part of the dynamic group that worked with is the 1950‟s, he found his path in ceramics. Of his columnar clay figures, Margaret Hawkins has written: “In any other material, these forms would be less poignant – in bronze, resin, plaster, they would verge closer to the permanence of art…(clay‟s) crumbly nature when fired makes these figures especially, tenderly alive.”1 De Staebler has also created a number of public commissions that are large-scale and involve architectural as well as artistic design. Most notable is the Newman Hall-Holy Spirit Parish in Berkeley, CA, where five extraordinary pieces adorn the chapel.

1. Margaret Hawkins. “De Staebler Finds Beauty in Ruin.” The Chicago Sun- Times (March 10 2006).

ARTIST’S STATEMENT – STEPHEN DE STAEBLER

“We are all wounded survivors, alive but devastated selves, fragmented, isolated – the condition of modern man. Art tries to restructure reality so that we can live with the suffering.”1

1. Quoted in: Stephen De Staebler: Master Artist Tribute VI: A Thirty-Year Survey. Moraga, CA: Hearst Art Gallery, Saint Mary‟s College of California, 2003, p. 2.

RESUME – STEPHEN DE STAEBLER

1933 Born, St. Louis, MO

1950-1954 , Princeton, NJ, A.B.

1951 , NC

1954 Fulbright Scholarship to Italy (declined by artist)

1957-1958 Instructor, Chadwick School, Rolling Hills, CA

1958-1959 University of California, Berkeley, Secondary Teaching Credential

1959-1961 University of California, Berkeley, M.A.

1960 Prize for Ceramic Sculpture, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA

1961 Award for Merit, First California Craftsman Biennial Exhibit, Oakland Museum, Oakland, CA Prize for Sculpture, San Francisco Annual, San Francisco, CA First Prize for Sculpture, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA

1961-1962 Instructor, San Francisco State College, San Francisco, CA

1961-1967 Instructor, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA

1964 Grant Purchase Award, Walnut Creek Art Festival, San Francisco, CA Major Purchase Award, San Francisco Art Festival, San Francisco, CA

1965 Zellerbach Memorial Prize in the Art of Sculpture

1967-1992 Professor, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA

1979, 1981 Individual Artist‟s Fellowship, National Endowment of the Arts

1983 Artist‟s Fellowship, Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

1989 Award in Art, American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, NY

1992 Nobukata Shikanai Special Prize, The Fourth Rodin Grand Prize Exhibition, Utsukushi-ga-hari Open Air Museum, Japan

1993 Honorary Member of the Council, NCECA

1994 Fellow, Council

2002 The Malvina Hoffman Fund Award for Sculpture, National Academy of Design

BIOGRAPHY – STEPHEN DE STAEBLER

California artist Stephen de Staebler started life in the Midwest. From an early age he was interested in art; he remembers an elementary art teacher who encouraged him with oil paints, watercolors, easels and a palette, and another who taught him that professionals work even when they do not feel like it, often finding that the resulting work is among their best. While he did some sculpting at that time, painting was his primary art medium. However, when he entered college at Princeton University, it was in religion, not art, that he earned his degree, and his initial plan was to continue with graduate studies in the history of religion. The philosophical questions he faced during the course of his studies would later be revisited in his art.

During the summer break in college, he studied art at Black Mountain College with Ben Shahn and , and following his graduation from Princeton in 1954, he declined a Fulbright Scholarship to Italy. Instead, he moved to the west coast, first teaching and then enrolling at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was to earn his M.A. There he became part of the group working with Peter Voulkos which was breaking the old rules and ushering in the modern era of contemporary ceramics. Thomas Albright, historian and critic, has called de Staebler “the most original and powerful” 1 of the sculptors working with Voulkos. De Staebler remained in the Bay area following his graduate studies, teaching first at San Francisco State College and San Francisco Art Institute and later at San Francisco State University.

De Staebler found in clay the medium he wanted. His earliest forms were geological in appearance, but before long he turned his attention to the figure and in particular the erect figure. He began constructing them from the bottom up, using wet or leathery clay, making adjustments as the figure demanded it, until the picture he saw in his mind emerged. He described his technique as “..making a collage where you take fragments that speak to one another and bring them into some kind of field that is more than the sum of its parts…. The beauty of clay when you start to segment and recombine it while it is wet, is that the fragments can be modulated intrinsically, not just superficially.”2 He was not particularly interested in glazes but used stains or mixed oxides in the wet clays resulting in subtle hues often flesh colored or pale blues. The fragmented figures have also existed strictly as fragments, that is disembodied legs, or arms, torsos or heads. Some were melded with clay supports, others stood alone, but in each case the part suggests the whole.

In addition to individual de Staebler has also been commissioned to create large artworks which combine architecture with sculpture. One of the most ambitious is the chapel at Holy Spirit Parish/Newman Hall in Berkeley, CA, which he designed and made in the late 1960‟s. While he was working on the project, de Staebler made his own studio a working model of the chapel. In the completed chapel, the altar, tabernacle, lectern, presider‟s chair, and the large crucifix are all made of fired clay and were done in concert with the architect during the development of the building structure. What is remarkable is to find not only one but five very large clay pieces which have been designed for daily functional use.

De Staebler had done some work in bronze early in his career, and in 1980 he began doing more casting which allowed greater permanence and size. By the end of the 1990‟s, however, he was again working in fired clay. Some of his more recent sculptures are assembled from what he calls his “boneyard,” a collection of pieces left over from earlier firings and used to make figures. Some have seen in these fragmented figures a reflection of the incompleteness of humans, while others find reminders of the cycle of human life and death, aging and endurance.

Stephen De Staebler has also produced drawings and monotypes. Celia Rabinovitch has said that his monotypes show the sculptor‟s hand in the broken figures and references to archaic icons.

De Staebler continues to live and work in the Bay Area. His work has been included in a large number of exhibitions, both solo and group, and is also included in a number of private collections in addition to his public commissions. Among the honors he has received are Fellow of the , Honorary Member of the NCECA Council, fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, and a number of prizes and awards for his sculpture.

1. Vivien Raynor. “Art; Display of Figures by de Staebler.” The New York Times (July 24 1988). 2. Dore Ashton. “Objects Worked by the Imagination for Their Innerness.” Arts Magazine 59 (November 1984).

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY – STEPHEN DE STAEBLER

Books and Catalogs

Adams, Doug. Transcendence with the Human Body in Art: George Segal, Stephen De Staebler, , and Christo. New York: Crossroad, 1991.

Adamson, Glenn. Thinking Through Craft. Oxford; New York: Berg, 2007.

Apostolos-Cappadona, Diane. Art, Creativity, and the Sacred. New York: Continuum, 1995.

Arneson, Robert, et al. 30 Ceramic Sculptors 1990. Davis, CA: Natsoulas Novelozo Gallery, 1990.

Bagley, Frances, James Sullivan, et al. Human Nature, Human Form. Austin, TX: Laguna Gloria Art Museum, 1993.

Boyd, Karen Johnson. The Nude in Clay II. Chicago: Perimeter Gallery, 1998.

Breslin, Ramsay Bell. Stephen de Staebler. San Francisco: Campbell-Thiebaud Gallery, 1994.

De Staebler, Stephen. Stephen De Staebler. Vancouver, BC: Emily Carr College of Art and Design and the Art Museum Association of America, 1983.

______. Stephen de Staebler: Figure Columns. New York: Franklin Parrasch Gallery, 2003.

______. Stephen De Staebler: Major Work from the 1980’s. New York: Franklin Parrasch Gallery, 1999.

______. Stephen de Staebler: Master Artist Tribute VI: a Thirty-Year Survey. Moraga CA: Hearst Art Gallery, 2003.

______. Stephen De Staebler, New Work. New York: Franklin Parrasch Gallery, 2001.

______. Stephen de Staebler: Recent Work. New York: Franklin Parrasch Gallery, 1998.

______Stephen De Staebler, Sculpture. Oakland, CA: Oakland Museum, 1974.

De Staebler, Stephen, Donald B. Kuspit, and Lynn Gamwell. Stephen De Staebler, the Figure. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1987.

Flynn, Michael. Ceramic Figures. London: A&C Black, 2002.

Galusha, Emily, and Mary Ann Nord. Clay Talks: Reflections by American Master Ceramists. Minneapolis, MN: Northern Clay Center, 2004.

Hough, Katherine Plake, and Michael Zakian. California Figurative Sculpture. Palm Springs, CA: Palm Springs Desert Museum, 1987.

Kuspit, Donald B. Stephen de Staebler: the Figure. San Francisco: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1988.

Peterson, Susan. The Craft and Art of Clay. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1992.

Twenty-Five Treasures: Fall 1997. San Francisco: The Campbell-Thiebaud Gallery, 1997.

Walls, Large Scale Ceramic Sculpture, Eight Variations. Logan, UT: Utah State University, 1990.

Periodicals

“Artists‟ Statements.” Artweek 24 (April 8 1993): 18-25.

Ashton, Dore. “Objects Worked by the Imagination for Their Innerness.” Arts Magazine 59 (November 1984): 140-144.

______. “Stephen de Staebler.” American Ceramics 13 no. 2 (1998): 48.

Burstein, J. “Stephen de Staebler.” American Ceramics (U.S.A.) 3 no. 1 (1984): 42-51.

Chattopadhyay, Collette. “Stephen de Staebler.” Sculpture (Washington, D.C.) 15 (July/August 1996): 53-54.

Edwards, S. “Stephen De Staebler: Sculpture.” Ceramic Review (U.K.) no. 73 (January/February 1982): 4-5.

Harnish, Anne. “Stephen De Staebler, Three Figures, Oakland, California.” Sculpture (May/June 1994).

Hawkins, Margaret. “De Staebler Sculpture Finds Beauty in Ruin.” Chicago Sun-Times (March 10 2006).

______. “Stephen de Staebler: Zolla/Lieberman.” ARTnews 105 no. 6 (June 2006): 150.

Ketcham, Diana. “Time Pieces.” ARTnews 88 (October 1989): 152-157.

Koplos, Janet. “[CDS Gallery, New York; Exhibit.]” Art in America 82 (January 1994): 98.

Kuspit, Donald. “Stephen De Staebler‟s Archaic Figures.” Ceramics Monthly 36 (September 1988): 27-30.

______. “Three Body Fantasists.” Art New England 25 no. 2 (February/March 2004): 8-9.

Levin, E. and S. Edwards. “Stephen De Staebler.” Ceramics Monthly 29 (April 1981): 54-62.

Megged, Matti. “Stephen de Staebler: Recent Sculptures.” Arts Magazine 62 (January 1988): 38-39.

Meisel, Alan R. “Heavy Clay by Stephen de Staebler.” Craft Horizons 35 (February 1975): 30-31.

“Milestones.” Sculpture (Washington, D.C.) 23 no. 6 (July/August 2004): 58-63.

Morgan, Robert C. “New York: Stephen De Staebler.” Sculpture (Washington, D.C.) 23 no. 8 (October 2004): 75-76.

Newby, Rick. “Stephen De Staebler.” American Craft 64 no. 5 (October/November 2004): 62-65.

“Painterly Allegories and Ceramic Parables.” Art News 76 (April 1977): 88-89.

Rabinovitch, Celia. “Fearsome Poetry: the Drawings of Stephen De Staebler.” American Ceramics 13 no. 2 (1998): 34-37.

______. “Stephen De Staebler at Graduate Theological Union Library.” Artweek 29 (February 1998): 18-19.

Raynor, Vivien. “Art; Display of Figures by de Staebler.” The New York Times (July 24 1988).

Schear, Catherine. “From the Garden to the Slagheap.” American Ceramics 14, no. 4 (2004): 16-17.

Schlesinger, E. “A Dark Vision.” Artweek (U.S.A.) 15 no. 13 (31 March 1984): 4.

“Sculpture.” Ceramic Review 73 (January/February 1982): 4-5.

Selz, Peter. “Stephen de Staebler‟s „Figure Columns.‟” Sculpture (Washington, D.C.) 21 no. 4 (May 2002): 24-27.

Shahn, Jonathan. “The Power of Fragmentation.” Sculpture Review 42 no. 4 (1993): 6- 9.

Stone, Sarah. “Stephen De Staebler.” Craft International 6 no. 4 (1988): 39-40.

Tuchman, Phyllis. “The Sunshine Boys.” Connoisseur 217 (February 1987): 62-69.

Van Proyen, Mark. “Crafts and the Ascendency of Sensation.” Artweek 21 (December 6 1990): 21-23.

______. “Stephen de Staebler at Paul Thiebaud.” Art in America 93 no. 2 (February 2005): 138.

Wechsler, S. “Views on the Figure.” American Ceramics (U.S.A.) 3 no. 1 (1984): 16-25.

White, Cheryl. “Transfigurations of the Spirit.” Artweek 19 (March 26 1988): 1.

Wood, Eve. “Stephen de Staebler.” American Ceramics 14 no. 4 (2004): 18-19.

Video and Other Media

“Revolutions of the Wheel: The Emergence of Clay Art.” Directed and edited by Scott Sterling. Queens Row, 1997. VHS

GALLERY REPRESENTATION – STEPHEN DE STAEBLER

Franklin Parrasch Gallery, 20 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019

WEB SITES – STEPHEN DE STAEBLER http://www.franklinparrasch.com/artists/stephen-destaebler/ De Staebler artist page at Franklin Parrasch Gallery web site. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_2_93/ai_n13487057 “Stephen De Staebler at Paul Thiebaud” by Mark Van Proyen. http://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag02/may02/staebler/staebler.shtml “Stephen De Staebler‟s „Figure Columns‟” by Peter Selz. http://artscenecal.com/ArticlesFile/Archive/Articles1996/Articles0396/DeStaebler.html “Stephen De Staebler” by Andy Brumer. http://www.catholicvoiceoakland.org/Archives/Archive111703.html “De Staebler‟s Art Inspires Praise or Criticism” by Diane Weddington http://calnewman.org/art.html Discusses De Staebler‟s sculptures in the chapel of Newman Hall, Berkeley, CA http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20050310/ai_n16145321 “De Staebler Sculpture Finds Beauty in Ruin” by Margaret Hawkins

December 2007