Sharon Core

{{short description|American artist and photographer|bot=PearBOT 5}}

{{Infobox artist

| name = Sharon Core

| birth_date = {{birth year and age|1965}}

| birth_place = New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.

| education = University of Georgia (BFA)
Yale University (MFA)

| awards = George Sakier Memorial Prize for Excellence in Photography, Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant

| field = Photography

}}

Sharon Core (born 1965) is an American artist and photographer. Core first gained recognition with her Thiebauds series (2003-4) in which she created photographic interpretations of American painter Wayne Thiebaud's renderings of food. Two of her works in the Thiebauds series, Candy Counter 1969 (2004){{Cite web|url=https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/14456|title=Candy Counter 1969|last=Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum|access-date=1 August 2016}} and Confections (2005){{Cite web|url=https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/14455|title=Confections|last=Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum|access-date=1 August 2016}} were acquired by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 2005.{{Cite web|url=http://prod-images.exhibit-e.com/www_yanceyrichardson_com/Core_Sharon_20150.pdf|title=Sharon Core CV|last=Yancey Richardson Gallery|website=Sharon Core|access-date=6 July 2016}}

Early life and education

Core was born in New Orleans in 1965. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1987 from the University of Georgia and a Master of Fine Arts from the Yale University School of Art in 1998, which is where she received the George Sakier Memorial Prize for Excellence in Photography.{{Cite web|url=https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/sharon-core|title=Sharon Core|last=Guggenheim Museum|access-date=20 June 2016}}

Career

After studying painting at the University of Georgia, Core moved to Stockholm, Sweden. She then settled in Prague in 1993, where she first practiced photography seriously and created a baking business based in her own apartment.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/magazine/cake-masters.html|title=Cake Masters|last=Egan|first=Maura|date=2004-03-28|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-07-25}} In 1996, she returned to the United States to attend the Yale University School of Art. For her thesis project, which was centered around the ritual of eating, she photographed people consuming their favorite foods.

This project led to her early series, Drunk (1998–2000), in which she captured portraits of intoxicated guests at a party she organized as well as those she found at local gatherings.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/magazine/cake-masters.html|title=Cake Masters|last=Egan|first=Maura|date=2004-03-28|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-07-25}}

Her next series, Early American (2007–2010), remodeled the still lifes of 18th century American painter Raphaelle Peale. Similar to the photographs of Thiebauds, Core again focused on the idea of process, growing the early 19th century produce in Peale's paintings in her greenhouse and collecting period dish ware.{{Cite web|url=http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/22/in-focus-sharon-core/?_r=0|title=In Focus {{!}} Sharon Core|last=Puckett-Rinella|first=Judith|website=T Magazine|date=22 October 2008 |access-date=2016-06-20}} She also painted the walls in the backdrop of the photographs to echo Peale's painting techniques.{{Cite journal|last=Golonu|first=Berin|date=March–April 2009|title=MIRRORING|jstor=24557042|journal=Art on Paper|volume=13|issue=4|pages=32–35 }} These works were on view at the Yancey Richardson Gallery in New York City from October 23 to December 6, 2008.{{Cite web|url=http://www.yanceyrichardson.com/past/?year=2008|title=Yancey Richardson Gallery > Past Exhibitions > 2008|last=exhibit-E.com|website=www.yanceyrichardson.com|access-date=2016-06-21}}

Core's project 1606-1907 (2011–2015) explored three centuries of flower paintings.{{Cite web|url=https://time.com/3798022/painting-with-a-camera-sharon-cores-early-american/|title=Painting with a Camera: Sharon Core's Early American|last=Chua-Eoan|first=Howard|website=Time|access-date=2016-06-20}}

For her subsequent project "Understory" (2015), Core takes inspiration from the seventeenth-century Sottobosco tradition of Dutch paintings of forest floors. According to a description in The New Yorker, "Core's new pictures revel in decay and wildness. Snails slither across bright, wet leaves; pink flowers collapse in a pile of petals; a toad peers from the shadows, camouflaged in the dirt."{{cite magazine|title="Goings On About Town: Art"|magazine=The New Yorker|date=2 May 2016}}

= Copyright =

In her series Thiebauds (2003–2005), Core recreated 18 of Wayne Thiebaud's food paintings of the 1960s. She was inspired upon viewing Thiebaud's retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2001.{{Cite web|url=http://www.elledecor.com/design-decorate/a2813/art-show-sharon-core-a-66695/|title=Art Show: Sharon Core|date=2010-10-07|website=ELLE DECOR|access-date=2016-06-20}} In 2004, Robert Panzer, then executive director of the Visual Artists and Galleries Association (the copyright collective that represented Thiebaud at the time), told the New York Times "Wayne Thiebaud is concerned with the use that Sharon Core has made of his work...The reproductions she has made are largely straightforward versions of his paintings."{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/28/magazine/cake-masters.html|title=Cake Masters|last=Egan|first=Maura|date=2004-03-28|newspaper=The New York Times|issn=0362-4331|access-date=2016-07-25}} Thiebaud responded to Panzer's remarks to the press by sending Core a letter praising her photographs and refuting Panzer's claims that Thiebaud was "concerned."Letter from Wayne Thiebaud to Sharon Core, April 5, 2004. Sharon Core archives, Esopus, NY

Personal life

Core lives and works in Esopus, New York.{{cite web |title=Artist website |url=http://www.sharoncore.net/new-page/ |website=www.sharoncore.net}}

Exhibitions

Core has presented solo exhibitions at spaces across the U.S.:{{Cite web|url=http://prod-images.exhibit-e.com/www_yanceyrichardson_com/Core_Sharon_20150.pdf|title=Sharon Core CV|last=Yancey Richardson Gallery|access-date=6 July 2016}}

White Room Exhibition, White Columns, New York (2000)
Sharon Core: Photographs, Clementine Gallery, New York (2001)
Thiebauds, Bellwether Gallery, New York (2004)
Early American, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York (2008),
James Kelly Contemporary, Santa Fe, New Mexico (2009),
Hermes Foundation, New York (2009),
Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia (2009)
Project Gallery, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York (2010)
1606-1907, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York (2011)
Still Lives: Early Works by Sharon Core, Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina (2013)
Understory, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York (2016)

= Selected collections =

Core's works have also been purchased by various institutions:{{Cite web|url=http://prod-images.exhibit-e.com/www_yanceyrichardson_com/Core_Sharon_20150.pdf|title=Sharon Core CV|last=Yancey Richardson Gallery|access-date=1 August 2016}}

Alturas Foundation, San Antonio, Texas
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio{{Cite web|url=https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2010.12?collection_search_query=sharon+core&op=search&form_build_id=form-h19sHPCbCRN17Gal5OjYYjJQSPyhVBMmRWUl5tBI4HM&form_id=clevelandart_collection_search_form|title=Early American, Melon and Pitcher, 2009 by Sharon Core|last=Cleveland Museum of Art|access-date=2 August 2016}}
Columbus Museum, Columbus, Georgia
Cornell Museum, Cleveland, Ohio
Hermes Foundation, Paris, France
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, California{{Cite web|url=http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/28075/sharon-core-american-born-1965/|title=Sharon Core (Getty Museum)|last=J. Paul Getty Museum|access-date=2 August 2016}}
Lannan Foundation, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, New Jersey{{Cite web|url=http://50.199.148.5:8081/view/objects/aslist/search@/0/primaryMaker-asc?t:state:flow=94941420-ceab-4253-b5e6-ff480db4bce1|title=eMuseum: Sharon Core|last=Montclair Art Museum|access-date=2 August 2016}}
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, Florida
The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC
Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey{{Cite web|url=http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/collections/objects/58873|title=Early American: Watermelon and Apple Gourd, 2007 by Sharon Core|last=Princeton University Art Museum|access-date=2 August 2016}}
Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, State University of New York, New Paltz, New York
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York
The Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina{{Cite web|url=http://www.mintmuseum.org/?open_collection=/resources/collection-database/creator/78/|title=Collection Database: Sharon Core|last=The Mint Museum|access-date=2 August 2016}}
The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C.
The Norton Collection, New York, New York
The West Collection, SEI, Oaks Park, Pennsylvania
The Zabludowicz Collection, London England, Sarvisalo, Finland, New York, New York
University of Virginia Art Museum, Charlottesville, VA
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT