Karl Albert Kasten - "Still Life, 1952"
Painting, Oil on Board, 22" x 34".
Karl Kasten was born in San Francisco in 1916. Karl received his A.B. and M.A. degrees in art at the University of California, Berkeley and was a student of Hans Hoffman in 1952 in Provincetown. Susan Landauer who authored "San Francisco and the Second Wave: The Blair Collection of Bay Area of Abstract Expressionism" is quoted that Kasten was the artist who most successfully absorbed Hofmann's teachings.
Kasten began his teaching career at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) in 1941. He served as a decorated captain in World War II . Following the war, he taught at the University of Michigan under the chairmanship of J.P. Slusser. Moving back to California in 1947, he took a teaching position at San Francisco State University, where he pioneered the program in printmaking. During the summer of '49 he studied modern etching techniques and printmaking with Lasansky at the University of Iowa. The following year he was offered a professorship at UC Berkeley, where he also introduced the program in printmaking and the study of art materials and techniques. He continued his career at Berkely until 1983 when he became Professor Emeritus.
In the early '50s Kasten experimented with Cubism and non-objective painting but after studying at the Hans Hofmann School in Provincetown, Mass in '51 he turned to Abstract Expressionism. Hoffman’s modern art philosophy stressed "pictorial structure, spatial illusion, and colour relationships." In her biography of the San Francisco School of Abstract Expressionism Susan Landauer noted Kasten as the artist who came closest to these tenets. Kasten said, "It was a great period to work in. Just letting things flow and seeing what happens... I think I got more color into painting during that time than most guys."
In 1960 Kasten unexpectedly met Willem De Kooning at an art gathering. Kasten invited de Kooning to the Berkeley campus where he pulled his first lithographs. Kasten has since lectured widely on the unique tools, technique and genius which de Kooning employed in the two lithographs. In the 1970s, he designed a lightweight press (The KB Press) in conjunction with the Berglin Corporation that can now be found in schools and studios around the world.
Karl has exhibited at the de Young Museum, California Palace of the Legion of Honor, Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Art, and the Whitney Museum of Art among others. His work in painting and printmaking is in major public and private collections internationally, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Musee des Beaux Arts in Brittany, The Oakland Art Museum, New York Public Library, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, and Auckland City Museum in New Zealand, and others. Today, Karl continues paint vigorously, and he is currently writing a series of personal memoirs. Three video tapes dealing with his work have been published by the North Light Studio, Elk, CA.
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