Charles Biederman
by Susan C. Larsen and Neil Juhl Larsen
♦ The definitive artist monograph on this acclaimed
American modernist who pioneered new directions in
geometric abstract art and in the Constructivist movement
♦ Features a complete account of Biederman’s 80-year
career
♦ Biederman’s body of work includes oils, wood and
string constructions, numerous articles, books, collections
of letters, and his most well-known work—his abstract
metal reliefs
Charles Joseph Biederman (1906–2004) was a highly
influential and iconoclastic American artist and theoretician
who influenced the modernist movement both
abroad and in the United States.
He was particularly drawn to the relationship between
nature and art, and wrote extensively on the subject—it
became the topic of fourteen books that he published.
Deeply engaged in theories of art and nature and art and
science, he maintained a nine-year correspondence, eventually
published with the British quantum physicist and
philosopher David Bohm.
Biederman, Midwesterner by birth, held nature as the
ultimate root of art but insisted upon a wholly abstract
translation of the natural into visual elements of color,
plane, and form. He worked extensively in the medium of
sculptural reliefs created in painted metal to execute his
vision of creating pure visual forms; these reliefs became
his most sought-after work.
Biederman’s work is represented in distinguished collections
across the United States and Western Europe,
including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Art Institute
of Chicago, and the Tate, London, among many others.
Susan C. Larsen is an art historian and former curator of the Permanent Collection at the Whitney Museum of
American Art. This monograph was initiated and
researched by Neil Juhl Larsen (1956–2006), a brilliant
friend and trusted colleague of the artist.
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