STEVE LINN

STEVE LINN Biography

Steve Linn was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1943. His father Max Linn gave him his first lessons in wood working and the pleasures of hand crafting. Max passed away when Steve was 13 years old and this tragedy encouraged his independence and ability to take the constant risks necessary to become an artist. His immersion in the arts began as an aside to his education in agriculture at the University of Illinois. He majored in Floriculture and Ornamental Horticulture because it was the only scholarship available. To enhance his social life, Linn got involved in musical theatre production. His art skills led to scenic design and thanks to the access offered by his housemates who were all art students, he was able to use the sculpture studios during off hours to begin making personal pieces.

After college, he received a Ford Foundation Grant and became an assistant designer at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. under Robin Wagner. After a year of working together, Wagner advised Linn to pursue a career in art as opposed to the more collaborative theatre design. From that time on, he focused on improving his drawing skills and taking jobs that would give him access to the tools necessary to make his sculptures.

These early works were figurative, made exclusively out of wood with some steel and stone, however, he found these materials ill-suited to his subject matter. In the late 1960’s while teaching at Smith College, Linn met Mike Brenneman who ran the foundry program at the University of Massachusetts. Brenneman taught him the skills necessary to cast bronze, adding a warm dimension that, when combined with the wood, enhanced the pieces which had become much more narrative.

In California, Linn ran the foundry and became the technical assistant in sculpture at the University of California in Santa Cruz. In 1972, while in New York, he was fortunate to connect with Louis Meisel who exhibited his work in his SOHO gallery. This was the career boost that every artist dreams of and he moved to New York the following year. Two years later, he won the coveted Prix de Rome in Sculpture which sowed the seeds of his future desire to move to Europe.

In 1982 he decided to do a sculpture about the California landscape photographer Imogen Cunningham. She worked with an 8 X 10 view camera that utilized treated glass plates for the negatives. Putting her life-size image on a glass plate was his goal and he found that sandblasting was the ideal method. Not long after incorporating glass into his work and while still exhibiting at Meisel, he met Ferd Hampson of Habatat Gallery in Michigan who brought Linn’s multimedia sculptures to a new audience.

In 1993 with the birth of his daughter the previous year, the dream of the 1970’s was realized and Linn and his family moved to the south of France. For the past thirty years, he has let the beauty of the countryside and the tranquility of village life add to the many influences that began with his Chicago Youth.

STEVE LINN Description

Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor. And indeed, his work rests on the meticulous research he conducts on each of his selected subjects and the interpretation of the references he chooses to develop for each one. Yet his definition would seem to leave out the intensity Linn puts into the materiality of the work. His range of preference is vast and often surprising, between wood, glass, bronze, other metals and now even holograms, to depict the clues he gives the viewer about the work and personality of his subject. He most often combines them all -and his mastery of each craft is impressive.

The subjects he chooses for his multi-faceted portraits are often visual artists and musicians he admires, but also sports legends, workmen and craftsmen (and women). Each tableau contains one or several views of the face or torso, first painstakingly drawn and then most often carved from plate glass or cast from a ceramic original via the kiln-formed glass technique. Tools and objects we would easily associate with the person if known to us are added in a careful composition, but Linn does not stop there. His portraits series, begun over 50 years ago, now includes more elaborate installations, and invites the viewer more deeply into the influences and relationships -webs that creative humans weave.

Steve Linn welcomes the opportunity to create commissions: this deeply humanist artist feels that each human being can reveal unique characteristics worth exploring with his mind and his hands.

WATCH THIS SHORT VIDEO by Nicolas Tremelet: Steve Linn in our series Inside the Sculptor's Studio.

STEVE LINN Statement

Two things in particular drove the direction of my career, my father Max Linn was a wood worker and he put tools in my hands when I was a young boy and taught me how to use them correctly and respectfully. The second was a series of 50 short biographies that I discovered in my grade school library that began my life-long fascination with the lives of remarkable people. Sculptural narratives, non-verbal documentaries; over the past number of years my work has been principally about artists and other creative people who have done wonderful things. Discovering the poetry of those lives and inventive minds in pursuit of their various disciplines has allowed me to experience in a vague vicarious sense the different time frames and geographical locations that this cast of characters inhabits and to imagine their intellectual process in order to enhance my own. Not losing sight of the fact that I am a sculptor, my objective is to combine these emotional experiences with the principles of design to create a well-crafted image that reveals the full depth of the character and is a work of art unto itself.

STEVE LINN Resumé

Selected Solo Exhibitions
1969 Amherst College, Amherst, MA
1971 Contemporary Arts Foundation, Oklahoma City, OK
1972 University of California, Santa Cruz, CA
1974 Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY 8 Solo Exhibitions
1974,1976,1979,1981,1983,1986,1989,1991
1975 Greenfield Community College, Greenfield, MA
1981 Lapukhine Nayduch Gallery, Boston, MA
1982 Tomasulo Gallery, Union College, Cranford, NJ
1985 Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, CT
1987 Habatat Gallery, Chicago, IL
1989 Kurland/Summers Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1992 Kurland/Summers Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1994 Ville de Hauterives, France
1996 Galerie L, Hamburg, Germany
1996 Heller Gallery, New York, NY
1998 Espace Louis Feuillade, Lunel, France
2002 Galerie HD NICK, Aubais, France
2003 Habatat Gallery, Birmingham, MI
2005 Sandra Aisley Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2015 Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
(with Robert Schefman)
2021 Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN

Selected Group Exhibitions and Art Fairs
1967 Gallery 222, Philadelphia, PA
1968 Smith College, Northampton, MA
1968 Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA
1974 Santa Barbara Museum, Santa Barbara, CA
1976 State University College, Potsdam, NY
1976 American Academy, Rome, Italy
1976-78 Rothman International (traveling exhibition,14 Canadian Museums)
1978 Flint Institute of Art, Flint, MI
1978 Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN
1979 Whitney Museum of American Art Downtown, New York, NY
1985 National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY
1986 Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI
1988 Florida State University Museum, Tallahassee, FL
1989 San Francisco International Airport, CA
1990 Phyllis Rothman Gallery, Fairleigh Dickinson University
1992 The Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Instituton,
1993 Grounds For Sculpture Hamilton, NJ
1996 Musée Toulouse Lautrec, Albi, France
1996 Musée d’Art et Histoire, Geneva, Switzerland
1999 Agropolis Museum, Montpellier, France
2003-4 Le Verre, Luminescence de L’art, France and Germany
2005 Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, MI
2007 Alden B. Dow Museum of Science and Art, Midland, MI
2009 Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI
2013 Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
1985-2019 Habatat Gallery, Royal Oak, MI – International Exhibition (23 times)
1986 Los Angeles Art Fair
1986-2018 SOFA Chicago + New Art Forms (18 times)
2008-2015 Art Palm Beach (8 times)

Selected Public Collections
Indianapolis Museum of Art, IN
Bayly Art Museum, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
Ile-Ife Foundation, Philadelphia, PA
Albany Museum of Art, Albany, GA
National Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, NY
Musee des Arts Decoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland
City of Pasadena, CA
Museum of American Glass, Millville, NJ
New York City Fire Museum, New York, NY
Verrerie Ouvrière d’Albi, Albi, France
National Liberty Museum, Philadelphia, PA
Museum of Art and History, Anchorage, AK
Long Beach Art Museum, Long Beach, CA
Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC
Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, FL
Commune de Hauterives, France
Verrerie Ouvrière d’Albi, France
Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN
Flint Institute of Art, Flint, MI
Autry Museum of Western Art, Los Angeles, CA
Dennos Museum Center, Traverse City, MI
Imagine Museum, St Petersburg, FL

Selected Honors and Awards
1975 Prix de Rome
1980 MacDowell Colony Grant
1987 Pollock - Krasner Foundation Grant

Selected Public and Corporate Commissions
1991 One Colorado Plaza, Pasadena, CA
1992 Meisel Exotic Tree Garden, Sagaponic, NY
1994 Maison d’Accueil Palais Ideal de Facteur Cheval, Hauterives, France
1996 Verrière Ouvriers d’Albi, Albi, France

Selected Publications
1976 Glasser, Penelope. “Aspects of Realism at Stratford,”Art Magazine, Summer, p.24
1977 “Goings on About Town,” The New Yorker, Jan. 3, pp. 7-8
1977 Zimmer, William. “Steven Linn,” Arts Magazine, Feb., pp.37-38
1979 Lubell, Ellen. “Passage to Indian Birds,” Soho Weekly News, March 22, p.29
1979 “New From Kenworth,” Overdrive Magazine, April, pp.81-82
1979 “This ‘Model’ is Life-Size,” Road King Magazine, Vol.16, No.2, Summer, p.29
1979 “Goings On About Town,” The New Yorker, February 12, p.11
1979 “Galleries,” Newport This Week, Vol.6, No.16, Aug. 17-30, p.36
1979 Sozanski, Edward. “Narratives Boldly STATED Preface UntoldStories,” The Providence Sunday Journal, Aug. 19, Sec.H, p.1
1979 Baker, Kenneth. “The Painted Story, Narrative Realism at Newport,” The Boston Phoenix, September, Sec.III, p.12
1980 Tucker, Virginia. “This Kenworth Doesn’t Use Diesel,” January/February, p.13
1981 Manning, Joe. “Wallenda Tribute Adds Balance to Show,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 2, p.5
1981 Meister, Catherine. “Circus Authority Saw Roots of Art, Exhibit 13 Years Ago,” Milwaukee Sentinel, May 6, p.5
1981 Pels, Marsha S. “Steve Linn; Shadow Boxing Within Narrative Realism,” Arts Magazine, March, pp.99-100
1981 Joslyn, Jay. “Circus Spotlighted in Center Ring of Art Exhibit,” Milwaukee Sentinel
1981 Yoskowitz, Robert. Arts Magazine, September, p.31
1981 Braff, Phyllis. “From the Studio,” The East Hampton Star, July 30
1981 Taylor, Robert. “Sculptors at Opposite Ends of Spectrum,” Boston Sunday Globe, December 30, p.A-32
1982 “Wood,” Rampike Magazine, Spring
1984 Donnell-Kotrozo, Carol. “Material Illusion: On the Issue of Ersatz Objects,” Arts Magazine, March, pp. 88-91
1985 Heller, Douglas. “New Glass Scene,” Glass Arts Society Journal, 1984-1985, pp.117-119
1985 “Munson Display in Hall of Fame,” Yankees Magazine, Vol.6, No.3, June, p.10
1985 Melody, Tom. “Artist’s Work Fitting Tribute to Munson,” Akron Beacon Journal, May 5, Section D, pp.1-2
1986 Freudenheim, Betty. “Trend in Art Glass: Other Materials,” The New York Times, January 9, Section C. p.7
1986 Duffy, Linda. “State-of-the-Art-Director Runs Museum,” Tallahassee Democrat/Sun, March 23, Section G, pp.1,6
1987 Siegel, Roslyn. “The Art of Glass Explored at Show,” The New York Times, January 15, Section C, p.7
1989 American Craft Magazine, August-September, p.87
1989 Art Today Magazine, Summer, cover, p.3
1990 Vivien Raynor “ART; Works With Shadings of Pygmalion”, The New York Times. January 1990.
1990 WNYF, New York Firefighter Magazine, March, backcover
1991 “Art/Work,” Personal Journal, Vol. 70, No. 5, May, p.144 ill.
1991 Gertmenian, Rebecca. “Linn: Narrator of Realism Salutes Builders of Dreams,” Pasadena Weekly, November 22, p.7.
1992 Kapitanoff, Nancy. “Works Pay Tribute to Special Leaders,” Los Angeles Times, May 24, p.67 ill.
1992 “Metal/Mixed Media,” American Craft Magazine, Oct. – Nov., p.72.
1993 “Steve Linn à la Salamandre à Nîmes”, CALADES, p.20 May 1993
1993 “La Maison du Verre”, MIDI LIBRE, November 2,
1993 Raymond ROUSSET, “Sur le Chemin des Verriers”, MIDI LIBRE, February 4
1994 Nicolas SIRSIRON, “La Galerie de Didier Nick à Aubais”, La Revue de la Ceramique et du Verre, p.51 March/April
1994 Ariane GRENON, “Aller à Lyon Pour Voir le Verre”, Courrier des Métiers D’Art, p 13, May
1994 Carole ANDRÉANI, “L’Art Contémporain du Verre Interbiénnale des Métiers D’Art”, Revue de la Ceramique et du Verre, p 60, No.76 May-June
1994 Loic TANNANT, “Un Art Visionnaire”, Le Dauphin p6 27 June
1994 Lise OTT, “Steve Linn”, La Revue de la Ceramique et du Verre, p 53, No.78 Sept-October
2015 Steve Linn, Sculpteur sur Verre, August 10, Midi Libre
2015 Thomas Casteran, “You have to be passionate about what you do” (Interview of Steve Linn), Age of Artist
2017 Jackie Headapohl, “White Hot”. April 19 2017. Detroit Jewish News

Books
1978 Seeman, Helene Zucker and Siegfried, Alanna. SoHo, Neal Schuman, New York
1978 Krantz, Les. The New York Review of Art, The Krantz Co., NY
1988 Krantz, Les. The New York Art Review, American References Inc.,Chicago, IL, p.130
1976 Goldsmith, Benedict. “The Presence and the Absence in Realism,” Brainerd Hall Gallery, State University College, Potsdam, NY
1976-78 Chase, Linda. “Aspects of Realism,” Rothman’s of Pall Mall Canada, Ltd., June 1976 – January 1978 (Travelling exhibition, 14 Canadian museums)
1978 Yassin, Robert. “Painting and Sculpture Today,” Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN, June 15 – July 30
1979 Cooper, Marve H. “Narrative Realism,” The Art Association of Newport, RI, August 18 – September 16
1979 Chambers, Bruce W. “Uncommon Visions,” Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester,
NY, May 4 – June 24
1981 “Center Ring – The Artist, Two Centuries of Circus Art”, Milwaukee Art Museum, WI, May 7 – June 28
1988 Santiago, Dwight. “A Generation in Glass Sculpture,” Florida StateUniversity, Tallahassee, 1989 Hampson, Ferdinand. “Glass State of the Art II”, Elliot Johnson
1989 “Expressions en Verre,” Collection du Musee des Arts Decoratifs de la Ville de Lausanne, Switzerland, pp.42, 82
1993 Verre Contemporain- Verrières-le-Buisson, p.10 December 1993
1994 Verre Contemporain et Vitrail- Salon de Verre et Vitrail,Villeurbanne-Lyon p.36 February 1994 Hauterives (Drôme pays du facteur Cheval) Exposition: Steve Linn
1998 Steve Linn Sculpture Exposition Lunel, France
2004 Sculpture Reference by Arthur Williams, Illustrated. Sculpture Books Publishing
2005 Sculpture, Glass, and American Museums. Martha Drexler Lynn
2005 Teapots, Makers and Collectors. Dona Meilach
2006 L’Art du Verre Contemporain. MUDAC – Lausanne, Switzerland
2009 Blown Away: International Glass of the 21st Century, Flint Institute of Arts
2009 Contemporary Kiln-Formed Glass: A World Survey by Keith Cummings – A&C Black Publishers, London
2010 Creative Glass by Danijela Kracun and Charles McFadden, Schiffer Publishing Ltd.
2012 Studio Glass in America: a 50 Year Journey by Ferdinand Hampson, Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA
2015 Steve Linn – Documentary Sculpture. Introduction by Ferdinand Hampson, Essay by Robert Seidman. Publisher, Habatat Gallery
2016 Glass Art – Barbara Purchia and Ashley Rooney, Schiffer Publishing, Atglen, PA
2016 Glass/Glass, Flint Museum of Art, Flint, MI
2018 Art in Transit, Charlotte NC Transit System Sculptures

Education
1965 B.S Floriculture and Ornamental Horticulture, University of Illinois