Edward Kienholz

Edward Kienholz (October 23, 1927 – June 10, 1994) was an American installation artist and assemblage sculptor whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he assembled much of his artwork in close collaboration with his artistic partner and fifth wife,Nancy Reddin Kienholz. Throughout much of their career, the work of the Kienholzes was more appreciated in Europe than in their native United States, though American museums have featured their art more prominently since the 1990s.

Art critic Brian Sewell called Edward Kienholz "the least known, most neglected and forgotten American artist of Jack Kerouac's Beat Generation of the 1950s, a contemporary of the writers Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs and Norman Mailer, his visual imagery at least as grim, gritty, sordid and depressing as their literary vocabulary".

Early life

Edward Ralph Kienholz was born in Fairfield, Washington, in the dry eastern part of the state. He grew up on a wheat farm, learning carpentry, drafting and mechanical skills. His father was strict, and his mother was a religious fundamentalist. but the rebellious son longed to escape this constricted environment. He studied art at Eastern Washington College of Education and, briefly, at Whitworth College in Spokane, but did not receive any formal degree. After a series of odd jobs, working as an orderly in a psychiatric hospital, manager of a dance band, used car salesman, caterer, decorator and vacuum cleaner salesman, Kienholz settled in Los Angeles, where he became involved with the avant-garde art scene of the day.

Nancy Reddin Kienholz

Nancy Reddin Kienholz (born December 9, 1943) is an American mixed media artist based in Hope, Idaho. She works in installation art, assemblage, photography, and lenticular printing. She is most famous for her collaborations with her husband and creative partner Edward Kienholz.

Early life

Reddin was born in Los Angeles, California in 1943. Her father, Thomas Reddin, was born in 1916 in New York City and worked in Los Angeles as a police officer; he would eventually serve as chief of the Los Angeles Police Department from 1967 to 1969. Her mother, real estate broker Betty Parsons Reddin, was born in 1921 in Denver, Colorado. Nancy was the youngest of three children, born after older brothers Thomas T. Reddin (1938 – 1985) and Michael Gray Reddin (b. 1942).

Reddin was first married at age 19. She had one child from this marriage, Christine, in 1964, but the marriage ended after two years. Reddin received no formal training in art, and worked several odd jobs in Los Angeles before beginning her collaborations with Ed Kienholz in 1972.

Los Angeles

Los Angeles (ⁱ/lɒs ˈændʒəlᵻs/ loss AN-jə-ləs or loss AN-jə-liss) (Spanish for "The Angels"), officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L.A., is the second-largest city in the United States after New York City, the most populous city in the state of California, and the county seat of Los Angeles County.

Situated in Southern California, Los Angeles is known for its mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, sprawling metropolis, and as a major center of the American entertainment industry. Los Angeles lies in a large coastal basin surrounded on three sides by mountains reaching up to and over 10,000 feet (3,000 m).

Historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was officially founded on September 4, 1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4, 1850, five months before California achieved statehood. The city experienced rapid growth with the discovery of oil.

Edward

Edward is an English and Polish given name. It is derived from the Anglo-Saxon form Ēadweard, composed of the elements ead "wealth, fortune; prosperous" and weard "guardian, protector".

Variant forms

The name has been adopted in the Iberian peninsula since the 15th century, due to Edward, King of Portugal, whose mother was English. The Spanish/Portuguese forms of the name are Eduardo and Duarte.

Other variant forms include French Édouard, Italian Edoardo, German and Dutch Eduard and Scandinavian Edvard. Short forms include Ed, Eddy, Eddie, Ted, Teddy, Woody and Ned. Edward can be abbreviated as Edw.

People called Edward

Medieval

War memorial

A war memorial is a building, monument, statue or other edifice to celebrate a war or victory, or (predominating in modern times) to commemorate those who died or were injured in a war.

Symbolism

Historic usage

For most of human history war memorials were erected to commemorate great victories. In Napoleon's day, the dead were shoveled into mass, unmarked graves. The Arc de Triomphe in Paris and Nelson's Column in London contain no names of those killed.

However, by the end of the nineteenth century, it was common for regiments in the British Army to erect monuments to their comrades who had died in small Imperial Wars and these memorials would list their names. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 was the first war in Europe in which rank-and-file soldiers were commemorated in war memorials. Every soldier was granted a permanent resting-place as part of the terms of the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871). By the early twentieth century some towns and cities in the United Kingdom raised the funds to commemorate the men from their communities who had fought and died in the Second Anglo-Boer War.