Designer/Maker:
Russell W. Baldwin - One of San Diego's most important mid-century
artists, Baldwin studied at San Diego State during the late 50s with
Everett Gee Jackson, Jean Swiggett, John Dirks, Martha Logenecker
and Ilse Ruocco. He explored many forms of expression; painting, sculpture,
drawing, ceramics and various constructed art forms and was a member
of the San Diego Art Guild, the Allied Craftsmen and the Contemporary
Arts Committee of the Fine Arts Society. Some of his first one-man
exhibitions took place in La Jolla at the Jefferson Gallery in 1964
and the La Jolla Museum of Art in 1965. He wrote his masters thesis
on sand-casting for sculpture during this period, but quickly moved
on to hard-edge constructions and polychrome mixed-media works that
were exhibited in La Jolla and in his 1966 one-man exhibit at the
Santa Barbara Museum of Art in 1966. He was one of San Diego's earliest
pioneers of conceptual art, working alongside fellow artist-teachers
Bob Matheny and John Baldessari who taught at Southwestern College
while Baldwin taught at Palomar College. He taught for many years
in the art department there and established the Boehm Gallery while
just beginning at Palomar.
Description:
An important work from his early 1960s sand-casting period. This piece
was exhibited in Baldwin's first one-man show at the Jefferson Gallery
and was singled out by local art critic Dr. Armin Kietzmann in a review
for the San Diego Union as being “concerned with representing
a reality other than itself.” Using corrugated cardboard and
an actual plastic toy gun, this piece is distinct from most of the
other sculpture in the Jefferson show, which were more abstract, autonomous
explorations of form and mass. “Child's Gun” is a surprisingly
early example of the ironic social commentary that eventually came
to dominate his work.
Retains partial Jefferson Gallery label (subsequently mis-dated) and
is signed in pen. From the estate of Russell Baldwin.
