H. C. Westermann

Westermann is the subject of a major retrospective (1955–1981) at the Fondazione Prada, Milan, October 20, 2017 – January 15, 2018

Westermann was subject to his third major museum retrospective in June 2001 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago traveling to the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Menil Collection.

After he left the Marine Corps at the end of the war, Westermann again enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago under the G.I. Bill to study Fine Art. Although he lacked the experience working as an artist that many of his younger peers held, Westermann was very well liked by his classmates and staff alike for his maturity and real world experiences. To complement his tuition from the G.I. Bill, he learned the craft of woodworking and began to take on work as a carpenter. He quickly established a reputation for quality work, yet his superiors urged him to value speed over craftsmanship, a conflict of values that led to him leaving carpentry for work and becoming a sculptor rather than a handyman. He continued his work until his death on November 3, 1981.

Westermann was subject to his second major museum retrospective in May 1978 at the Whitney Museum touring to SFMOMA, the Seattle Art Museum. Des Moines Art Center, and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

Westermann was subject to his first major museum retrospective in November 1968 at LACMA an expanded version of which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago.

In terms of subject matter and style, Westermann also held a plethora of techniques. In his array of sculptures and paintings, he relied on dry humor as much as strong visual images and bristling social commentary. The clearest depiction of this is his work “Walnut Box-1964,” which is a small wooden box constructed of walnut and filled with real walnuts. This marks a clear transition from his usual ambiguous and enigmatic style, yet still retains the same level of craftsmanship seen in each of Westermann's sculptures.

Westermann's sculptures reveal not only the influence of craft traditions, but also of varied art historical precedents. The artist's ability to convey subtle and uncanny effects through the presentation of seemingly simple objects has often led critics to compare his work to that of Surrealist-inspired artists such as Joseph Cornell. However, Westermann's work encompasses elements from a broad and diverse range of artistic practices, including Assemblage, Dada, and Folk Art. His sculptures, moreover, point to minimal and post-minimal art of the late 1960s and beyond, in terms of their rigorous craftsmanship, formal sophistication, unconventional use of materials, and sense of humor.

Feeling bitter and fed up with the current state of art in America, as well as unhappy with his current situation, Westermann reenlisted in the US Marine Corps in 1950 as an infantryman in the Korean War. He entered the conflict still patriotic from his service in World War II, yet due to the military blunders and senseless violence he witnessed, he left the conflict with a drastically different set of values of America's place in the world. These anti-military views would later be reflected in his future works.

Immediately following the end of the war, Westermann formed a two-man acrobatics act with the United Service Organization (USO) and toured the Far East for a year, where he met his first wife, June Laford, a showgirl performing in Shanghai. Together, Westermann and his new bride moved to Chicago and had a son, Gregory. Westermann then enrolled in the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1947 to study Applied Art. He also took a job in the Applied Arts Department to financially support his new family. Three years later, June divorced Westermann, after which he grew increasingly disillusioned with mainstream art.

After graduating from High School, Westermann briefly enrolled in Los Angeles City College and later took a job in the Pacific Northwest as a rail worker in logging camps. In 1942, at the outbreak of World War II, he enlisted in the US Marine Corps at age twenty and was stationed aboard the USS Enterprise as an anti-aircraft gunner. The USS Enterprise was heavily involved in the Pacific campaign and took part in many critical battles, such as the Battle of Midway and the Guadalcanal campaign. The ship bore the brunt of numerous Japanese Kamikaze attacks, horrific events that informed much of H.C. Westermann's later work. Additionally, Westermann witnessed the destruction of the USS Franklin and the loss of over 800 men. He would later reflect on the experience and described “the horrible smell of death…” The brutal and horrific naval warfare experienced by Westermann is reflected in most of his work, especially his “Death Ships” series.

H. C. Westermann (Horace Clifford "Cliff" Westermann) (December 11, 1922 – November 3, 1981) was an American sculptor and printmaker. His sculptures frequently incorporated traditional carpentry and marquetry techniques. From the late 1950s until his death in 1981, Westermann worked with a number of materials and formal devices to address a range of personal, literary, artistic, and pop-cultural references. The artist's sculptural oeuvre is distinguished by its intricate craftsmanship, in which wood, metal, glass, and other materials are laboriously hand-tooled, and by its ability to convey an offbeat, often humorous, individualistic sensibility.

Horace Clifford (H.C.) Westermann was born in Los Angeles, California in December 1922. His father of the same name was an accountant. From an early age H.C. Westermann demonstrated a natural talent and aptitude for the arts, specifically sculpting. He designed and ultimately created his personal scooters and toys. Eventually, he even contributed a small addition to his parents’ home.