Robert Hugh Cumming (October 7, 1943 – December 16, 2021) was an American painter, sculptor, photographer, and printmaker best known for his photographs of conceptual drawings and constructions, which layer meanings within meanings, and reference both science and art history.
Robert Cumming | |
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Born | October 7, 1943 Worcester, MA |
Died | December 16, 2021 (aged 78) Desert Hot Springs, CA |
Nationality | American |
Education | Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, BFA; University of Illinois, Champagne-Urbana, MFA |
Known for | Photography, Painting, Sculpture, Printmaking |
Movement | Conceptualism |
Awards | National Endowment for the Arts grants (1973, 1974, 1983) Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, (1980-81) |
Website | https://robertcummingartist.com |
Cumming grew up just outside of Boston, MA.[1] He earned a BFA in 1965 from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston and an MFA in 1967 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.[2]
His first teaching position was at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where he was involved with mail art, an early conceptual art movement that conferred art status on items sent through the postal system. In 1970, Cumming moved to southern California to lecture on photography, and in 1974, he started teaching at the University of California, Los Angeles. In 1978, Cumming moved back to New England, where he continued to teach and make art.[3][4]
Cumming studied photography in graduate school, studying with Art Sinsabaugh. In the beginning he used photography as a means of documenting sculptural works, but eventually “the works became as much about photographic documentation as about the objects.”[5]
Cumming is represented in the permanent collections of various major art museums, including:
Cumming died on December 16, 2021, at the age of 78 from complications of Parkinson’s disease.[3]