Richard Pettibone
During the early 1960's, Richard Pettibone began appropriating miniature versions of paintings of important Pop Artists such as Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein.
RICHARD PETTIBONE
During the early 1960's, Richard Pettibone began appropriating miniature versions of paintings of important Pop Artists such as Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein.
It was at this time Richard Pettibone began creating his signature miniature constructions on tiny, handcrafted stretcher bars. By miniaturizing iconic works of Pop Art, Richard Pettibone created a new way of looking at well-known post war and contemporary art masterpieces.
During 2005-2006, the Richard Pettibone: A Retrospective Exhibition of approximately 200 paintings traveled to three museums, including the Tang Museum, Laguna Beach, California. The Richard Pettibone Retrospective presented a comprehensive exhibition of Pettibone's unique "art historical referencing" to a larger audience, many of whom had only been familiar with later appropriation artists such as Elaine Sturtevant, Vik Muniz, Richard Prince, Louise Lawler, Tom Friedman and Sherrie Levine.
In a review of the Richard Pettibone Retrospective Roberta Smith, co-chief art critic at The New York Times observed:
He has relentlessly produced exquisitely accurate pocket-size copies of modernist masterworks by artists from Duchamp and Brancusi to Lichtenstein and Warhol. In addition, he has seemed completely unperturbed by this apparent lack of originality. What has it gotten him? Certainly not the attention he deserves.
More recently in 2018/2019, Richard Pettibone had a survey of Pop Art small-scale replicas of iconic masterpieces by artists ranging from Marcel Duchamp to Roy Lichtenstein to Andy Warhol in an exhibition titled Richard Pettibone Endless Variation at the FLAG Art Foundation. The intimately-sized works, some as small as two by two inches, speak to themes of reproduction, originalityand authorship—ideas as relevant in today’s art world as when he began painting in the early 1960s. Pettibone’s appropriations are truly remarkable as they not only capture a miniature version of the respective Pop Art masterpiece, but also meticulously recreates the medium of each appropriated artist, in the case of Warhol, screenrprintingand in the case of Jasper Johns, the use of encaustic.
