Drill Press, 1982
Paper Construction with Pen & Ink, 78" x 30" x 18"
Step Ladder with Paint Can and Brush
Paper Construction with Pen & Ink, 38" x 20" x 18"
Pier Gustafson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1956. He received a B.S. from Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, Minnesota, in 1978, and an M.F>A. in painting from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1982. He then moved to Boston. Gustafson makes painstakingly folded paper constructions and then covers the surface with pen and ink, creating, in effect, three-dimensional drawings. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and two Massachusetts Artist Fellowships. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, and the Minnesota Museum of Art, St. Paul. He began making sculpture-drawings of individual objects such as paint tubes and hammers, and then went on to create whole environments, including a crowded garage and a storeroom filled with forgotten objects.
*Excerpted from Tools as Art: The Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.