Michael Malpass

Michael Malpass was born in New York City in 1946.  He received his B.F.A. in 1969, his M.F.A. in 1973, and a B.S. in welding in 1979, all from the Pratt Institute, New York.  He continued there as a professor of sculpture and welding until moving to Rutgers University in New Jersey.  He had his first one-man exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery, New York, in 1977.  His work has been exhibited at several New York galleries, as well as at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, and the Brooklyn Museum.  Malpass’ work can be found in the collections of the Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, North Carolina, the Vassar College Art Museum, Poughkeepsie, New York, the National Museum of Art, Warsaw, Poland, and the National Art Museum, Sofia, Bulgaria.  His work is also included in major corporate collections, including those of TRW, the Ford Foundation, and General Electric Corporation.  He completed major commissions for the State of Connecticut and the New Jersey State Council of the Arts.  Malpass created his sculptures from found objects and often used discarded tools, hardware, and building materials.  He shaped these objects on a bandsaw, reducing the volumetric forms to linear elements that he then interlocked into complex geometric patterns, forming spheres.  During the course of his career, Malpass’ work became increasingly complex and the patterns and grids that comprised his spheres became more intricate.  Among his early influences were the found-object sculptures of Richard Stankiewicz and the work of Theodore Roszak, who, like Malpass, worked with molten steel. Michael Malpass died on February 15, 1991.

www.michaelmalpass.com

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: the Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc. Updated to include mention of the artist’s passing