Tragamon, 1972. Cast acrylic; 90” h; Oakland Museum of California; Photo Nick Zurek

One of the first things visitors notice as they enter the Oakland Museum of California from 10th Street is a clear polygon rising from the open-air koi pond. This is Tragamon, a cast-acrylic sculpture by Oakland abstract artist Bruce Beasley, created and installed in 1972. On sunny mornings the sculpture acts as a prism, refracting the light up the museum steps in bright bands of color.

The exhibition covered more than four decades of Beasley’s sculpture, and included approximately 70 works in aluminum and acrylic, cast and fabricated bronze, stainless steel, iron, granite, and wood. A tableau of the artist’s studio, with his tools and examples of his collection of animal skulls and other source material, were also on display.

“The museum decided to offer a retrospective of Bruce’s work now to mark this milestone year in his career and to pay tribute to the completion of Vitality, his 37-foot bronze commissioned by the city of Oakland for the Frank Ogawa Plaza,” said Philip Linhares, chief curator of art at the museum. “We’ve long admired Bruce’s thoughtful, analytical work, and its unexpected emotional content.”

The Oakland Museum of California organized the Beasley retrospective and produced the exhibition catalog. Published by Wilsted & Taylor, Oakland, the catalog includes a foreword by Linhares; essays by Albert Elsen, noted professor of art history at Stanford University, and Los Angeles critic Peter Frank; a personal statement by the artist; an illustrated chronology; and photography by M. Lee Fatherree.

In his essay, Peter Frank notes, “Beasley hews to modernism’s formalist position, the art-for-art’s-sake strain that has constituted the bedrock of modernist practice for a century and a half. Being a good modernist, however, he has always been engaged in and influenced by innovation, not novelty, but true inventiveness. What makes Beasley the artist he is is the integrity of the art he makes.”

Born in Los Angles in 1939, Bruce Beasley is recognized as one of the most noteworthy and innovative sculptors on the West Coast. He began his art studies at Dartmouth College before transferring to the University of California, Berkeley art department in 1959. His timing was excellent: Berkeley was the epicenter of a revival in sculpture in the late 1950s. Beasley was exposed to distinguished sculptors Sidney Gordin, Richard O’Hanlon, Harold Paris and, most importantly, Peter Voulkos. Beasley joined Voulkos, Paris, and foundryman Donald Haskin to build the Garbanzo Works, a foundry in west Berkeley where they created major works in cast bronze and aluminum.

Icarus, 1963. Cast aluminum; 36” h x 36” w; National Museum of Modern Art, Pompidou Center, Paris; Photo M. Lee Fatherree

Even as a student Beasley’s dynamic and space-enveloping sculptures generated interest: his work Chorus was acquired by New York’s Museum of Modern Art, making him the youngest artist at the time to be part of its permanent collection. In 1963 he was one of 11 sculptors to represent the U.S. at the Biennale de Paris and his piece Icarus was acquired by Minister of Culture André Malraux for the French National. Shortly after, Beasley’s work was acquired by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the LA County Museum, and the National Museum of America Art/Smithsonian.

Beasley bought a run-down warehouse complex in west Oakland in 1964 and turned it into a foundry and living quarters. His early works from the 1960s used iron from industrial scrap he found at junkyards and cast aluminum. By mid-decade Beasley’s work was characterized by his forthright interest in technical experiments and new technology and by his involvement in the arrangement of elementary structures, especially crystals. By the end of the 1960s he had turned to a new medium—cast, clear acrylic, an untried material with daunting technical hazards.

Beasley approached the DuPont Corporation in 1968 for technical and financial support to produce a monumental cast-acrylic sculpture commissioned by the state. DuPont instead donated a generous amount of acrylic material and Beasley began his casting experiments. In 1969 he made a major breakthrough in casting technology, creating a process that enabled him to produce Apolymon, the 13,000-pound commissioned work. This technology also made possible the creation of an all-transparent bathysphere in 1976 for underwater exploration and the large clear walls in today’s aquariums. His innovation was awarded a commendation by NASA and was the subject of a television program produced by the Smithsonian Institution in 1991.

After a decade of prolific production in cast acrylic, Beasley turned to large-scale metal sculpture. In 1978 he created three large metal pieces, for the Miami International Airport, a state office building in San Bernadino, and the San Francisco International Airport. In 1983 Beasley created Arristus, a 14-foot stainless steel piece for the Djerassi Foundation, in Woodside, California. That same year Stanford University purchased his 28-foot stainless steel sculpture Vanguard. He created a 32-foot piece, Artemon, for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

In 1988 Beasley began conceiving his pieces on a computer, and was one of the first artists to use computer-assisted design (CAD) technology. He learned and modified a three-dimensional computer solid-modeling system to visualize complex geometric relationships prior to construction. His progress was interrupted by the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake; his studio, only blocks from the collapsed Cypress Freeway, was damaged. Within a year he resolved his technical problems associated with the precision of his new style and created Pillars of Cypress, cast from the freeway’s crushed rebar steel.

Beasley has traveled to Japan, Mexico, China, Hong Kong, Germany, Alaska, and Spain to lecture and attend exhibits and installations of his work. In 1998 he visited Egypt for the Cairo Biennale; the Egyptian government purchased his sculpture, Ally II, for its national collection. His travels to the prehistoric caves of France and Spain and his collection of Oceanic and Alaskan art and artifacts have served as important source material.

A self-described “unrepentant modernist,” Bruce Beasley advanced the idea of sculpture with formal structures that could be simultaneously observed in multiple views, and in changing and reflecting light, as in Tragamon (the gift of Dr. and Mrs. Frederick Novy). The museum’s retrospective of his work demonstrates the artist’s growth, range, and ingenuity over the past four decades. Never static, Beasley continues to work from his West Oakland compound, using new materials and new technologies.

Sculpture by Bruce Beasley: A 45-Year Retrospective is made possible with generous support from the Oakland Museum Women's Board, The Bernard Osher Foundation, and The Friends of Bruce Beasley.

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