Richard Koppe [b. 1916: St. Paul, Minnesota – d. 1973: Chicago, Illinois]
canvas, oil paint, wire, wood
33 by 43 inches
Collection of the Illinois State Museum
The impeccable craftsmanship and rigorous attention to design issues in Richard Koppe’s 1950 construction Black Wires reflects his education at and experience with Lazlo Moholy-Nagy’s New Bauhaus school (later the Institute of Design) in Chicago.
This construction is from one of his most productive and well-regarded periods when he was using highly simplified and stylized animal and insect forms to create abstract works that resonate with a connection to the natural world. Always conscious of formal issues of space and light, Koppe has created a shadow box in which three-dimensional wire stands in for line and shadows swim in-and-out of the composition.