Karen LaMonte facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Karen LaMonte
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Karen LaMonte with Vestige
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| Born | December 14, 1967 |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island |
| Known for | Sculpture, Contemporary Art. |
Karen LaMonte (born December 14, 1967) is an American artist. She is famous for her life-size sculptures. She creates these amazing artworks from ceramic, bronze, marble, and cast glass.
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About Karen LaMonte
Karen LaMonte was born and grew up in Manhattan, New York City. In 1990, she finished her studies at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). She earned a Bachelor in Fine Arts degree with honors.
After college, LaMonte received a special award called a fellowship. This allowed her to work at the Creative Glass Center of America. Later, she moved to Brooklyn, New York. There, she worked at UrbanGlass, a place where people can learn about glass art. During this time, she made art using blown and cast glass. Her pieces were shown in art galleries.
In 1999, LaMonte won a Fulbright scholarship. This allowed her to study at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. In 2000, she created her first big artwork, called Vestige. People quickly praised her work. She received awards like The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Biennial Award in 2001. She also won the UrbanGlass Award for New Talent in Glass in 2002.
In 2006, she received another fellowship. This one was from the Japan-United States Friendship Commission. She spent seven months studying in Kyoto, Japan. This trip gave her ideas for her Floating World series of artworks.
In 2009, LaMonte started working with the Kholer Artist Center. This was at the Corning Museum of Glass. She was chosen for the museum's Joint Artist-In-Residence Program. In 2017, the Corning Museum gave her another special role. She became the Specialty Glass Artist-In-Residence at Corning's science lab. Many of her artworks are now part of the Corning Museum's permanent collection.
In 2015, LaMonte received the Masters of the Medium award. Her art has been shown in many museums. These include the Czech Museum of Fine Art in Prague. Also, the Chrysler Museum of Art in Virginia, and the Museum of Glass in Washington. Her works are also kept in the permanent collections of major museums. These include The Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris.
LaMonte now lives and works in Prague, Czech Republic. She lives with her husband, Steve Polaner, who also manages her studio.
Karen LaMonte's Artworks
During her Fulbright year, LaMonte started working at a glass casting studio. This studio was in Pelechov. Here, she created Vestige. This is a life-size sculpture of a dress. But the person who would wear the dress is not there. The sculpture took one year to finish. It also needed new ways of working with glass. One method used was the lost wax technique. Vestige became a very important artwork in modern art and glass.
LaMonte's art often explores ideas of beauty and loss. She uses clothing to show how fragile human life can be.
Her sculptures have been praised by art critics. One critic, Arthur Danto, wrote about Vestige in 2005. He said the dress showed a moment in time. It showed how women dressed for special events. He also noted that the person who wore it would have changed over time. This makes the artwork feel a bit sad. It shows how fashion changes and how our bodies change as we get older. He felt LaMonte's dresses show the beauty and sadness of change.
During her 2006 trip to Japan, LaMonte studied how clothing tells a story about society. She learned about the traditional kimono. She brought hundreds of kimonos back to her studio in Prague. Then, she used special data about Japanese women's bodies. She used this data to create kimono sculptures. These were made from glass, bronze, rusted iron, and ceramic. Like her other works, these full-size kimonos show only the clothing, not the people. LaMonte called this series Floating World. This name came from Japanese woodblock prints called Ukiyo-e. It also came from the fun, artsy areas of Edo-era Japan.
LaMonte continued to explore the female form with her Nocturnes series. These works were inspired by night paintings by James Abbott McNeill Whistler. They also took ideas from night-themed music called nocturnes. LaMonte designed her own evening gowns for these sculptures. Then she cast them in white bronze, rusted iron, and blue glass. Again, LaMonte focused on the clothing, not the person wearing it.
In 2013, LaMonte talked about how she creates her art. She said that research is a big part of it. But first, she gets the idea for the sculptures. This takes months for the vision to become clear. Then comes the second part: making the art. This often means trying out new materials. She loves learning new things and solving technical problems.
In 2017, LaMonte showed her large sculpture called Cumulus. It was part of the Glasstress exhibition at the Venice Biennale. Most of her past works showed the absence of the human body. But Cumulus is different. It shows a cumulus cloud. She told Caltech Magazine what inspired her. She was surprised by how heavy clouds actually are. She thought it would be amazing to carve a "real" cloud from marble.
LaMonte worked with a climate scientist named Tapio Schneider. He helped her figure out the size and shape for Cumulus. She used robots to carve a huge 15-ton block of marble. Then, she spent four weeks finishing the sculpture by hand. Cumulus still connects to her earlier work. She said her cloud looks like "folds of fabric or flesh tumbling through space."
Main Art Series
Dress Sculptures
LaMonte's first dress sculpture was Vestige (2000). It is a very important work made of cast glass. One gallery called it a "glass sculpture that changed the course of art history."
Vestige shows a life-sized woman's dress. The person who would wear it is not there. This sculpture and other similar works by LaMonte are famous around the world. Her Reclining Dress Impression with Drapery (2009) is in the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The de Young Museum in San Francisco has her Dress 3 (2001).
Floating World Kimono Sculptures
LaMonte's Floating World series grew from her dress sculptures. These works were inspired by Japan. They show kimonos without anyone wearing them. The sculptures are life-sized. They are made from iron, cast glass, bronze, and ceramic. Some even use kintsugi. This is a Japanese method that uses gold to fix broken ceramics.
LaMonte got the idea for this series during her research trip to Kyoto. She lived in a traditional kimono-making area. She learned all about making kimonos. She said that clothing is like a secret language in all cultures. But the kimono is perhaps the most detailed.
Sculptures from Floating World are in many museum collections. These include Maiko (2010) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Also, Odoriko (2012, bronze) and Hanako (2012, cast glass) at the Chazen Museum of Art.
Etudes
LaMonte's Etudes are smaller than her famous life-sized dress sculptures. They are made from white bronze, rusted iron, cast glass, and other materials. She named them Etudes after musical pieces. She said they are more than just studies for bigger works. They celebrate hope and our need for beauty.
LaMonte's Etudes sculptures are in the Imagine Museum's permanent collections.
Nocturnes
LaMonte describes her Nocturnes series as "inspired by the beauty of night." She says they are "dark and amazing." They do not show female forms. Instead, they rise from dark garments. They are like images of dusk.
Many people have written about the Nocturnes. Dr. Steven Nash wrote in a book that LaMonte's sculptures are very modern. They show how important sculpture is today. He said LaMonte's art explores female identity. It does this in both beautiful and abstract ways. Each sculpture is a mix of what we see, feel, and think.
Sculptures from the Nocturnes series are in the permanent collections of several museums. These include The Corning Museum and the Knoxville Museum of Art.
Sartoriotype Prints
Besides her sculptures, LaMonte also makes striking gray-scale prints. These are called monotype prints. They show clothing. One writer said the paper makes an X-ray-like image of the clothes. It shows the layers of fabric. It also shows the ripples and wrinkles. These were made when a person was wearing the clothes. It's like seeing a ghost of someone's identity.
Cumulus
Cumulus (2017) is LaMonte's first big work made of Italian marble. She wanted to use a material made by nature. This would help her show the forces of nature. The sculpture is eight feet tall. It weighs two-and-a-half tons. It was shaped using real weather data. Robots and a super-computer helped carve it.
LaMonte told Caltech magazine that technology helped her. It let her make something light and airy, like a cloud, into something solid and lasting.
Cumulus was first shown at the Venice Biennale. It was part of the Glasstress exhibition.
Awards and Recognition
- Corning Museum of Glass / Corning Incorporated, Specialty Glass Artist-in-Residence, 2018
- James Renwick Alliance, Masters of the Medium Award, 2015
- Corning Museum of Glass / Kohler Arts Center, Joint Artist-in-Residence Program, 2009
- Jutta Cuny Franz Memorial Award, Laureate, 2007
- Japan-United States Friendship Commission, NEA, 2006
- Creative Artists Exchange Fellowship Program, 2006
- The Virginia A. Groot Foundation, Recognition Award, 2005
- UrbanGlass, Award for New Talent in Glass, 2002
- Creative Glass Center of America, Fellowship, 2002 and 1991
- The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Biennial Award, 2001
- Fulbright Fellowship, Czech Republic, 1999–2000
Museum Collections
Karen LaMonte's works are part of the permanent collections in many museums, including:
- University Museums at Iowa State, Ames, Iowa
- Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts
- National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia
- Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio
- The Museum of Art and Archaeology, Columbus, Missouri
- The Corning Museum, Corning, New York
- Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan
- Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, Tennessee
- Spencer Museum of Art, Lawrence, Kansas
- The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
- Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin
- The Museum of American Glass, Wheaton Arts and Cultural Center, Millville, New Jersey
- Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama
- Alexander Tutsek Foundation, Munich, Germany
- Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia
- Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
- Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California
- Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France
- Racine Art Museum and RAM's Charles A. Wustum Museum of Fine Arts, Racine, Wisconsin
- M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California
- The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida
- Imagine Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida
- The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
- The Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, Arizona
- Vero Beach Museum of Art, Vero Beach, Florida
- The Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Renwick Gallery, Washington DC
Exhibitions
Karen LaMonte's art has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions:
- 2021 Théâtre de la Monde, Barry Art Museum, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, [1]
- 2019 Floating World. Imagine Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida
- 2019 Glasstress 2019. Fondazione Berengo Art Space, Campiello Della Pescheria, Venice, Italy. Featured work: Reclining Nocturne 4 (2019)
- 2019 Divergent Materiality: Contemporary Glass Art. Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Scottsdale, Arizona. Featured work: Child’s Dress (2011)
- 2018 Embodied Beauty. Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga Tennessee
- 2018 Clothed in Light. Kampa Museum, Prague, Czech Republic
- 2017 Glasstress 2017. Palazzo Franchetti, Venice, Italy. Featured works: Nocturne 1 (2017), Nocturne 6 (2017), Cumulus (2017), Nocturne 3 (2016), Reclining Nocturne 1 (2015)
- 2017 Floating World. Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin
- 2016 Connections: Contemporary Craft at the Renwick Gallery. Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Renwick Gallery, Washington DC. Featured work: Reclining Dress Impression with Drapery (2009)
- 2015 Floating World. Museum of West Bohemia, Pilsen, Czech Republic.
- 2014 Dayton Celebrates Glass. Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, Ohio.
- 2013 Playing with Fire: 50 Years of Contemporary Glass. Museum of Art and Design, New York, New York.
- 2011 Kimono: Karen LaMonte & Prints of the Floating World. New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico
- 2011 Floating World. Imago Galleries, Palm Desert, California
- 2010 Réflexions Féminines. Musée-Atelier départemental du Verre, Sars-Poteries, France
- 2010 Drapery Abstractions. Heller Gallery, New York, New York
- 2009 Contemporary Glass Among the Classics. Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia
- 2008 Karen LaMonte Sculptures. Glasmuseum Hentrich, Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, Germany.
- 2005 Absence Adorned. Museum of Glass International Center for Contemporary Art, Tacoma, Washington
- 2004 Vanitas. Czech Museum of Fine Art, Prague, Czech Republic
Publications About Karen LaMonte
- Nocturnes. Authored by Dr. Steven Nash, Karen LaMonte (2019). Art Works Publishing. ISBN: 978-0-988928411
- Karen LaMonte: Floating World. Authored by Laura Addison, Karen LaMonte (2013). Art Works Publishing. ISBN: 978-0988928404
- Karen LaMonte: Absence Adorned. Authored by Arthur C. Danto, Juli Cho Bailer, Josi Callan (2005). Museum of Glass International Center for Contemporary Art. ISBN: 978-0972664912
- Vanitas. Authored by Petr Štěpán (2005). České Muzeum Výtvarných Umění / The Czech Museum of Fine Arts
- Sculptures and Sartoriotypes. Authored by Richard Drury (2003). Czech Museum of Fine Arts, Prague
- Absent Impressions. Authored by Robert Bell (2002). National Gallery of Australia
