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Early Work 1963-1973 brings together rarely seen works by Robert Graham, providing an overview and reconsideration
of his initial engagement with Minimalism and figurative sculpture. Modelled after images on television or in popular
magazines such as Life, Graham's early work comprises Plexiglas-encased environments populated by miniature wax
figurines engaged in leisurely or pleasurable activities. The ethereal surfaces of these enclosures evoke the highly
finished and meticulous objects associated with the Finish Fetish aesthetic, while their interior spaces suggest the geography
of 1960s California as well as the modernist domestic interiors popularized by John Entenza's Case Study
House Program.
Over the course of his career, Robert Graham developed an exceptionally focused artistic practice preoccupied with
scale and the human figure. Since the early 1970s his works have been exhibited widely at venues including the
Kunstverein, Hamburg, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Graham's work is held in major museum
collections and he received numerous public commissions, including the 1984 Olympic Gateway in Los Angeles and
the Duke Ellington Memorial in Central Park, New York, in 1997. Born in Mexico City in 1938, Graham died in Santa
Monica, California, in 2008.
Co-published with David Zwirner, New York
