Art News

From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine’s Gray Column at the J. Paul Getty Museum

LOS ANGELES, CA.- One of the most influential sculptors active in Los Angeles in the 1960’s and 1970’s, De Wain Valentine is perhaps best known for his striking, semitransparent, and delicately colored large-scale polyester resin sculptures of simple geometric forms that interact intensely with the surrounding light. Not as well known, however, are the challenges Valentine faced in finding a material that would allow him to realize his artistic vision. Now, as part of the Los Angeles-wide Pacific Standard Time initiative, the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) presents From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine’s Gray Column, an exhibition focused on the materials and fabrication processes developed by Valentine that made the creation of his large-scale works possible. The exhibition centers around the 1975-6 sculpture Gray Column, which, at twelve feet high,