'Large Abstract, 1956' by Keith Sanzenbach, San Francisco Bay Area, North Beach, Beat, Beatnik, Big Sur

Description

Signed lower right, 'K. Sanzenbach' for Keith Sanzenbach (American, 1931-1964) and dated 1956. Additionally signed, verso, and with the artist's … more Signed lower right, 'K. Sanzenbach' for Keith Sanzenbach (American, 1931-1964) and dated 1956. Additionally signed, verso, and with the artist's Lagunitas, California address.

The influential Bay Area critic, Thomas Albright, in his monumental history, 'Art in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-1980', commented that Keith Sanzenbach "..made some of the era's most interesting paintings". Peter Plagens, in 'Sunshine Muse, Contemporary Art on the West Coast', deemed him to be "... the beats... only decent formal artist". Frida Forsgren, in her outstanding study of the period, 'Beat Lives, 13 San Francisco-based Artists of the Fifties', observes that Sanzenbach showed "...a strong artistic personality with a raw creative energy and a distinctly personal style". She deems him "..one of the most talented artists of the early 1960's California Beat scene."

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Keith Sanzenbach studied at Syracuse University, graduating in 1954 with a Bachelors in Fine Arts. He first moved to Berkeley in 1955, then settled in San Francisco a year later to pursue a career as an artist. Sanzenbach showed his works in bars and local galleries and lived on a houseboat in Sausalito with fellow-artists Wallace Berman, Jack Carrigg and Arthur Richer. The beat poet, Allen Ginsberg, remembered living on Gough Street above the artist and his pretty wife, Nikki. Sanzenbach's earliest works are figurative, but he later developed an abstract, visionary style characterized by the juxtaposition of intense colors. In 1962, to avoid the "influx of wannabe beatniks" flooding North Beach, he removed to the wildness of Big Sur where, two years later, he was to die, unrecognized at the age of 33.

Reference:
Albright, Thomas, Art in the San Francisco Bay Area 1945 - 1980, Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1985, s. 103, 105; Merrill Green, Art as a muscular principle. 10 artists and San Francisco 1950-1065/roots and new directions/ mount Holyoak college 1975, pp. 82-84; Frida Forsgren, San Francisco Beat Art in Norway, Forlaget Press, Oslo, 2008, pp. 156-157; Peter Plagens, Sunshine Muse, Contemporary Art on the West Coast, Praeger, 1974; Frida Forsgren, Beat Lives, 13 San Francisco-based Artists of the Fifties, Portal Books, 2013, page 48-53; et al. less