David Salle helped define the post-modern sensibility in painting. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at museums and galleries worldwide, including the Whitney Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; MoMA Vienna; Menil Collection, Houston; Haus der Kunst, Munich; Castello di Rivoli; MoCA, Chicago, and the Guggenheim, Bilbao. A highly lauded writer on art, Salle is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. A collection of his essays, HOW TO SEE: Looking, Talking, and Thinking about Art, was published by W.W. Norton in 2016. An exhibition of recent paintings will be on view at the Palazzo Cini in Venice, Italy, from May 6 through September 27.
Born in 1952 in Norman, Oklahoma, David Salle grew up in Wichita, Kansas. In 1970, he began his studies at the newly founded California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where he worked with John Baldessari. Creating abstract paintings, installations, and video and conceptual pieces, Salle earned a BFA in 1973 and an MFA in 1975, both from CalArts.
Photo: Costas Picadas