Abstracted Nude Couple Figurative Relief by Joe Funk

Description

Clay relief of abstracted nude couple by California artist Joe Funk (American, 1918-1981). Monogram signature on individual reliefs and signed … more Clay relief of abstracted nude couple by California artist Joe Funk (American, 1918-1981). Monogram signature on individual reliefs and signed on verso. included with photograph and description in his catalog. Catalog with photos of sculpture, and artist biography are included. Ceramics: each 7.25"H x 3.25"W. Overall Size: 10.50"H x 14"W x 5.75"D

Joe Funk was an American artist and print maker born in Los Angeles, California, to Polish and German immigrant parents. He died in 1981 in Santa Cruz, California.
As a young person in Los Angeles, Joe Funk showed an interest in art. He studied at the Otis and Chouinard Art Institutes and worked on several murals throughout Los Angeles in the Works Progress Administration. He served in the United States Army, from 1943 to 1946, in Korea and Okinawa a s a heavy anti-aircraft artillery mechanic and instructor, warehouseman, and artist, publicist, and graphic designer for special events at Headquarters Company, Asiatic Command. At the ASCOM University in Korea, he was an instructor in pencil sketching. It was during his time in Korea that he developed a lifelong interest in Asian art. Using the G.I. Bill, after the Korean War, he earned a Masters Degree in fine art from the University of Southern California.
In the 1950s, Joe met Lynton Kistler and worked at Kistler’s facility in Los Angeles, the only lithographic press open for business on the west coast at that time. During his time as an apprentice, Joe printed for many well-known artists, such as Jean Charlot, man Ray, Max Ernst, Emerson Woelffer and June Wayne.
When June Wayne opened the Tamarind Lighography Workshop in Los Angeles in 1960, she offered the status of fellow printer to Joe Funk. At Tamarind, he began work printing lithographs for guest artists and training future printmakers.
After Tamarind, Joe became the technical director at Kanthos Press from 1961-1962, where he printed for Jose Cuevasand and Aubrey Schwartz. In 1964, he became co-owner of Joseph Press and was printmaker for Sam Francis, Arnold Belkin and Rico Lebrun. From 1962-1964, Joe taught at the Chouinart Art Institute.
Joe established a non-profit corporation in Venice, California in the late 1960s, called Joseph Graphics. Here, he trained apprentice printmakers and printed for numerous artists including Joyce Treiman, Dan Stolpe, and Arnold Schifrin. It was in this period of time that Joe began creating sculptures with found objects such as feathers, bones, leather, bits of scrap metal, wire, fabric, paper, wood, plastic, pieces of ceramic, rocks, shells, and other small and large pieces of various manmade and organic materials. He called these sculptures Funk Icons.
Again, in the late 1970s, he contributed to several mural projects in Los Angeles funded by the Comprehensive Employment and Training Acts grant.
Joe Funk spent the last two years of his life living with cancer. During this time, Dan Stolpe gathered all of his artwork and equipment and brought Joe to live with him in Santa Cruz, California. There, the two of them developed the Native Images printmaking program and facility. A few weeks before his death, Joe gave his life’s work to Native Images, a collection of art that represents his 50 years as an American artist. less