Vija Celmins facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Vija Celmins
Born	Vija Celmiņa (1938-10-25) October 25, 1938 (age 86) Riga, Latvia
Nationality	American
Education	John Herron School of Art UCLA
Known for	Painting, Graphic art, Printmaking
Movement	Abstract, Minimalism, Photorealism
Awards	Guggenheim Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Carnegie Prize, MacArthur Fellowship

Vija Celmins (pronounced VEE-ya SELL-muns; born October 25, 1938) is a famous Latvian American artist. She is known for her super realistic paintings and drawings. These artworks often show natural things like the ocean, spider webs, starry skies, and rocks.

Earlier in her career, she made pop sculptures and paintings that looked like photos. Vija Celmins lives in New York City. She has had more than forty solo art shows since 1965. Her art has been shown in major museums around the world. These include the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

About Vija Celmins' Life

Vija Celmiņa was born on October 25, 1938, in Riga, Latvia. During World War II, her family had to leave Latvia. They fled to Germany because of the Soviet invasion. After the war, her family lived in a refugee camp.

In 1948, her family moved to the United States. They first lived in New York City, then in Indianapolis, Indiana. Vija was ten years old and did not speak English. This made her focus on drawing. Her teachers saw her talent and encouraged her to create more art.

Becoming an Artist

In 1955, Vija started studying at the John Herron School of Art in Indianapolis. She felt like she finally belonged there. In 1961, she won a special scholarship. This allowed her to attend a summer program at Yale University. There, she met other artists like Chuck Close.

During this time, she studied the work of Giorgio Morandi. He was an Italian painter known for his simple, quiet still life paintings. Vija also started making abstract art. In 1962, she earned her art degree from Herron. She then moved to Venice, Los Angeles, to continue her studies at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). She graduated from UCLA in 1965.

After college, she lived in Venice until 1980. She created paintings and sculptures. She also taught art at several universities.

Moving to New York

In 1981, Vija Celmins moved to New York City. She wanted to be closer to the artists and art she admired. She also started painting again. She had stopped painting for twelve years, focusing mostly on pencil drawings. Later, she also worked with woodcuts, erasers, and charcoal.

Since then, she has worked from a small house in Sag Harbor, New York. She also has a studio in Soho, Manhattan. In the 1980s, she taught art at the Cooper Union and Yale University School of Art.

Vija Celmins' Artworks

Tulip Car #1 (1966) at the National Gallery of Art

In the 1960s, while in California, Vija Celmins created early works. These included realistic paintings and sculptures inspired by pop art. She painted everyday items like TVs, lamps, and pencils. She also made paintings that looked exactly like black and white photos. Some of her early paintings showed themes of violence, like war planes or handguns.

Detailed Drawings

From the late 1960s to the 1970s, she stopped painting. She focused on making very detailed, realistic drawings using graphite pencil. These drawings were based on photographs of natural things. She drew the ocean's surface, the Moon's surface, the inside of shells, and close-ups of rocks.

Critics often compare her careful work to artists like Chuck Close. She has said that Giorgio Morandi was a big influence on her. Her drawings often look random, as if any photo could have been used. This makes them seem calm and unbiased.

Sculptures and Prints

From 1976 to 1983, Celmins also returned to making sculptures. She created a series of bronze stones. These were exact copies of real stones she found in New Mexico. The Museum of Modern Art has eleven of these stone sculptures.

By 1981, she started painting again. She also began working with woodcuts and other printing methods. She used charcoal a lot, often removing darkness from images to create subtle grey tones.

Later Works

Since the early 1980s, Celmins has focused on drawing constellations, the moon, and oceans. She uses different techniques, mixing abstract art with photorealism. By 2000, she started creating amazing spider webs. These were often negative images in oil or charcoal. Critics praised her careful surfaces and how her art seemed to glow.

She has said that all these works are based on photographs. She puts a lot of effort into building up the surfaces of her images. In 1996, a review called her "American art's best-kept secret."

Many critics have noticed something special about Celmins' works since the late 1960s. Her moonscapes, ocean surfaces, star fields, shells, and spider webs often lack a clear reference point. There is no horizon, no sense of depth, or landmarks to give them context. You don't know the exact location or scientific name.

Blackboard Tableau #14 (2011-2015) at the National Gallery of Art

Since 2008, Celmins has returned to drawing objects. She has painted maps and books. She also created many small graphite tablets that look like handheld blackboards. She has released new prints of her famous waves, spiderwebs, and desert floors.

Her woodcuts of water can take a year to carve. She once said they "remind us of 'the complexity of the simplest things'."

Art Shows and Collections

Vija Celmins' art has been shown in over forty solo exhibitions worldwide since 1966. She has also been part of hundreds of group shows. Her art is now represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.

In 2020, a big show called Vija Celmins was organized by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Between 1992 and 1994, another major show of her work traveled to several museums. These included the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Group Exhibitions

In 2022, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles held an exhibition called Joan Didion: What She Means. Vija Celmins' artworks were included in this show. Her art was displayed alongside works by 50 other modern artists.

Notable Art in Public Collections

In 2005, a big art collector named Edward R. Broida gave 17 of her artworks to the Museum of Modern Art. This gift was worth a lot of money.

Awards and Recognition

Vija Celmins has received many important awards for her art:

• 1961: Fellowship to Yale University Summer Session
• 1968: Cassandra Foundation Award
• 1971 & 1976: Artist's Fellowship from National Endowment for the Arts
• 1980: Guggenheim Fellowship
• 1996: American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Art
• 1997: Skowhegan Medal for Painting
• 1997: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Fellowship (often called a "genius grant")
• 2000–2001: Coutts Contemporary Art Foundation Award
• 2004 Elected into the National Academy of Design
• 2006: RISD Athena Award for Excellence in Painting
• 2008: Awarded the $10,000 Carnegie Prize
• 2009: Roswitha Haftmann Prize
• 2009: Fellow Award in the Visual Arts from United States Artists
• 2021: Honoree of the Great Immigrants Award, Carnegie Corporation of New York