Stanley Boxer

Born in Brooklyn in 1926, Stanley Boxer developed a practice spanning painting, printmaking, drawing and sculpture. After serving during the Second World War, he studied at the Art Students League of New York, where he trained in different media. His career included a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1975, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1989 and his election as a full member of the National Academy of Design in 1993.

In his experimental approach, material plays a decisive role. One gallery describes his mature works as dense surfaces made with impasto and additions — sand, glitter, sawdust, wood shavings or beads — rather than paint alone. According to the Spanierman Gallery, his abstract compositions, often developed through the repetition of gestures, aim to produce new forms and an effect on the viewer, rather than to make the materials serve as vehicles for a narrative. This gallery associates his work with Lyrical Abstraction. In a statement reproduced by Berry Campbell, Boxer says that he uses “anything and everything” to make his art, without sentimental attachment or the sacralisation of the medium.

The range of supports is evident in the documented works: Hardboiled (1973) is described as a drawing in pencil, pastel pencil and chalk on sandpaper, while Roansplaywitnessofday (1980) is an oil painting on linen measuring 50 × 18 inches. According to a gallery, his works have been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum, and are held in public and private collections in the United States and abroad.

Works recorded at auction

Germann

Hardboiled, 1973

Pencil, pastel pencil and chalk on sandpaper

Original catalogue wording

Hardboiled, 1973
Bleistift, Pastellstift und Kreide auf Sandpapier.

Date to be documented

Catalogue reference — sale not confirmed

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