Richard Nonas

Nonas was educated in literature and anthropology at University of Michigan, Lafayette College, Columbia University, and the University of North Carolina.{{cite web |title=Richard Nonas |url=http://fergusmccaffrey.com/artist/richard-nonas/ |publisher=Fergus Mccaffrey Gallery |accessdate=30 December 2018 |archive-date=28 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181228185330/http://fergusmccaffrey.com/artist/richard-nonas/ |url-status=live }} He followed this with field-work studies on Native American sites in Northern Ontario, Canada, and in Northern Mexico and Southern Arizona before becoming a sculptor.{{cite web |title=Eye of the Sixties - Judith Stein, Miles Bellamy, Mark di Suvero, Rosalyn Drexler, Alfred Leslie, Richard Nonas - An Art Book Series Event |url=https://www.nypl.org/events/programs/2016/09/14/eye-sixties-judith-stein-miles-bellamy-rosalyn-drexler-alfred-leslie-mark |publisher=New York Public Library |accessdate=30 December 2018}}

Nonas' Post-minimalist sculptural practice addressed notions of space, place, and deep time.{{cite journal |last1=Selvin |first1=Claire |title=Richard Nonas, Experimental Sculptor Who Pushed the Medium to New Frontiers, Has Died at 85 |journal=ARTnews |date=12 May 2021 |url=https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/richard-nonas-artist-dead-1234592590/?fbclid=IwAR2vWPUYXCKN5yOw3UVZPQGQdFOW5Uz-AXgzjLaDdNSee-0ubuN40u5sjTg |access-date=12 May 2021 |archive-date=12 May 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210512205802/https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/richard-nonas-artist-dead-1234592590/?fbclid=IwAR2vWPUYXCKN5yOw3UVZPQGQdFOW5Uz-AXgzjLaDdNSee-0ubuN40u5sjTg |url-status=live }} His work from the 1970s involves experimentation with modes of presentation as well as material experimentation in which he used granite curbstones, linear wooden beams, and other raw materials. This work has been described as "talismanic objects" that create impressions of spiritual, emotional, and philosophical notions and meanings.

Nonas' oeuvre is known for modular sculptural installations, primarily in stone or wood, in interior and exterior settings.{{cite web |last1=Levin |first1=Kim |title=Richard Nonas at Fergus McCaffrey |date=3 November 2014 |url=http://www.artnews.com/2014/11/03/richard-nonas-at-fergus-mccaffrey/ |publisher=ARTnews |accessdate=30 December 2018 |archive-date=31 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181231092534/http://www.artnews.com/2014/11/03/richard-nonas-at-fergus-mccaffrey/ |url-status=live }}{{cite web |last1=Mosoff |first1=Julie |title=On Display: Richard Nonas |date=25 September 2014 |url=http://dujour.com/design/richard-nonas-sculptures/ |publisher=Du Jour |accessdate=30 December 2018}} Carter Ratcliff wrote that "we cannot grasp a Nonas sculpture simply by thinking about it. His works call for intuitive, empathetic responses."{{cite web |last1=Ratcliff |first1=Carter |title=Seeing Ourselves in Sculpture |date=7 July 2018 |url=https://hyperallergic.com/449927/richard-nonas-t-space-gallery-rhinebeck/ |publisher=Hyperallergic |accessdate=30 December 2018 |archive-date=31 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181231043145/https://hyperallergic.com/449927/richard-nonas-t-space-gallery-rhinebeck/ |url-status=live }}

His work has been compared to that of Richard Serra, Joel Shapiro, and Dorothea Rockburne. His work has been exhibited internationally. He created a 300-foot-long installation in the U.S. at MassMoca in a one-person exhibition, Richard Nonas: The Man in the Empty Space.{{cite news |last1=Kors |first1=Stacey |title=Sculptor Richard Nonas mingles nature, culture at Mass MoCA |url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2016/02/21/sculptor-nonas-mingles-nature-and-culture-mass-moca/bC7qjh2lwEDq7pF76OfIjJ/story.html |accessdate=30 December 2018 |publisher=Boston Globe |date=21 February 2016 |archive-date=31 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181231050123/https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/theater-art/2016/02/21/sculptor-nonas-mingles-nature-and-culture-mass-moca/bC7qjh2lwEDq7pF76OfIjJ/story.html |url-status=live }}{{cite web |title=Richard Nonas: The Man in the Empty Space |date=14 November 2015 |url=https://massmoca.org/event/richard-nonas/ |publisher=Mass MoCA |accessdate=30 December 2018 |archive-date=31 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181231092325/https://massmoca.org/event/richard-nonas/ |url-status=live }} His work was featured in the 1973 Whitney Biennial.{{cite book |title=1973 Whitney Biennial Exhibition |date=1973 |publisher=Whitney Museum of American Art |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/1973biennialexhi/page/14 14] |url=https://archive.org/details/1973biennialexhi |accessdate=30 December 2018}} Courtney Fiske has written that Nonas treated "space as a material", in that each work is intended to be a "blunt insertion into the viewer's surrounds. His approach to minimalism not only includes serialiity, but also maintain a sense of self-containment and timelessness."{{cite journal |last1=Fiske |first1=Courtney |title=Reviews: Richard Nonas, Fergus McCafferty Gallery, New York |journal=Art in America |date=November 29, 2014 |url=https://www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/richard-nonas/ |accessdate=18 June 2019 |archive-date=18 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190618021931/https://www.artinamericamagazine.com/reviews/richard-nonas/ |url-status=live }} Joyce Beckenstein writing for the magazine Sculpture, described Nonas' studio as a "Wunderkammer piled high with artifacts and relics as well as past and in-progress works....with the unexpected surprises of an archaeological dig."{{cite journal |last1=Beckenstein |first1=Joyce |title=A Conversation with Richard Nonas: Telling it Slant |journal=Sculpture Magazine |date=November 2017 |volume=36 |issue=9 |url=https://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag17/nov_17/nov17_features2.shtml |accessdate=18 June 2019 |archive-date=18 June 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190618022448/https://www.sculpture.org/documents/scmag17/nov_17/nov17_features2.shtml |url-status=live }}

Nonas stated that his travels impacted on his artistic practice, "What I realized in Mexico was that there are physical places, spaces deeply imbued with human meaning, that can have a great deal of power over us, places that affect us in an extremely worldly way." He described his sculptures as ways to define his own "existent reality, the reality I try to describe to you.

Nonas exhibited his work widely throughout the world, including shows in the U.S. at MoMA PS1, Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, MASS MoCA, Walker Art Museum, among many others. Internationally, his work has been shown at Documenta 6, Kassel, Germany; the Musée d’art de Saint-Etienne, France; Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva, Switzerland; Lund Museum of Art, Lund, Sweden; among other venues.{{cite web |title=Richard Nonas: The Man in the Empty Space |date=18 January 2016 |url=https://massmoca.org/richard-nonas-the-man-in-the-empty-space/ |publisher=MASS MoCA |access-date=12 May 2021}}

He was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation in 1974.{{cite web |title=Richard Nonas |url=https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/richard-nonas/ |website=Fellows |publisher=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation |access-date=2018-12-30 |archive-date=2018-07-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180715040433/https://www.gf.org/fellows/all-fellows/richard-nonas/ |url-status=live }}

File:Richard Nonas Borås Surround.JPG

Nonas produced permanent public art works for the Museum of Grenoble, Transi West (for 36 Albanians ...), 1994; the North Dakota Museum of Art, Granite. In the early 1990s the North Dakota Museum of Art commissioned Nonas to design a sculpture garden and specimen peony garden for the museum.{{cite web |title=Sculpture Garden: Richard Nonas - Granite |url=https://www.ndmoa.com/sculpture-garden |publisher=North Dakota Museum of Art |accessdate=30 December 2018}} In 2012, at the abandoned village, Vière et les Moyennes Montagnes, Digne-les-Bains, France, he created a permanent installation.

Nonas' work is included in the collections of the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Minnesota, the Metropolitan Museum, and the Whitney Museum of American Art among others.{{cite web |title=Richard Nonas |url=https://walkerart.org/collections/artists/richard-nonas |website=Collection: Art & Artists |publisher=Walker Art Center |accessdate=30 December 2018 |archive-date=31 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181231092310/https://walkerart.org/collections/artists/richard-nonas |url-status=live }}{{cite web |title=Details from the Excavation of Wooster Street (Richard Nonas) |url=https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/773130 |website=The MET: Collection |publisher=Metropolitan Museum |accessdate=30 December 2018}}{{cite web |title=Richard Nonas (1936-) |url=http://collection.whitney.org/artist/16918/RichardNonas |website=Collection |publisher=Whitney Museum of American Art |accessdate=30 December 2018 |archive-date=31 December 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181231092626/http://collection.whitney.org/artist/16918/RichardNonas |url-status=live }} His work is also included in the permanent collection of the Fondazione Ratti, Italy.

• 1998 Richard Nonas 1970-1988, Art and Architecture Books of the Twentieth Century.
• 1985 Kuspit, D. and Rosenzweig, P., Richard Nonas, Sculpture, Parts to anything, Nassau Country Museum of Fine Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York, 1985.

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Category:1936 births

Category:2021 deaths

Category:20th-century American sculptors

Category:20th-century American male artists

Category:American installation artists

Category:Lafayette College alumni

Category:University of Michigan alumni

Category:Columbia University alumni

Category:University of North Carolina alumni

Category:Sculptors from New York City

Category:Postminimalist artists