Billy al bengston biography for kids
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Otis College Alumnx Billy Al Bengston (’57 BFA Fine Arts) Dies at 88
Influential artist and Otis College alumnx, Billy Al Bengston, has died at the age of 88. Bengston attended what was then called Otis Art Institute in the 1950s, studying with the esteemed sculptor Pete Voulkos—”Working with Pete Voulkos was like working with god,” he once said—and quickly became known for having a rebellious spirit, so much that he would eventually get kicked out of Otis (though he is officially recognized as a BFA Fine Arts alumnx). Of his time at Otis, Bengston told the Los Angeles Times in a special article about Otis’s 100th birthday: “Back then the whole art community was a maximum of fifty people, and what I remember about Otis was the camaraderie. We all sort of lived by night and it was totally crazy by today’s standards.”
The following obituaries celebrate Bengston’s brilliance and influence.
From the Los Angeles Times:
“Billy Al Bengston, Ferus Gallery pioneer and purveyor of custom car culture, dies at 88”
Billy Al Bengston, the artist who helped establish L.A. Cool School at the Ferus Gallery through his geometric brand of West Coast, custom car-culture inspired Pop art, has died. He was 88.
Bengston died of natural causes at his home in Venice, said his gal
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Billy Al Bengston, Ferus Gallery pioneer and purveyor of custom car culture, dies at 88
Billy Al Bengston, the artist who helped establish L.A. Cool School at the Ferus Gallery through his geometric brand of West Coast, custom car-culture inspired Pop art, has died. He was 88.
Bengston died of natural causes at his home in Venice, said his gallery, Various Small Fires, on Sunday.
Bengston came of age as an artist in the late 1950s, as part of a group of young West Coast contemporary art luminaries including Ed Ruscha, Ed Moses, Robert Irwin and Larry Bell, who helped cement the legendary status of Walter Hopps’ Ferus Gallery as a counterculture hot bed on North La Cienega Boulevard.
Pop art was just emerging and Bengston spoke its language well with his simple, aesthetically direct and repetitive motifs. His shiny, heavily lacquered surfaces also earned him associations with “finish fetish.” But it was his flamboyant personality, colorful sartorial choices and love of California custom car, motorcycle and surf culture that came to define him as a person and an artist.
He staged five solo shows at Ferus Gallery, including his debut in 1958, and once posed on a motorcycle for the cover of a Ferus catalogue in 1961. In the 1960s he elevated his love for sleek metal via his c
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Billy Al Bengston, painter who epitomised rendering visual wordbook of Calif. culture, has died, very great 88
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