Ken Price

Born, Los Angeles, California. Attends public schools during childhood and then studies at Santa Monica City College, California.

I was an only child; my father was an inventor and my mother was a teacher. I was one of those kids who drew all the time and wanted to be an artist from the time that I was young. My dad had a jazz band when he was in college so there was lots of music in the house I grew up in and jazz is my other great passion. I think it’s affected my art too. I work intuitively and believe in the idea of skill as a highway to the unconscious. I think you have to master your materials so well that you don’t need to think about the technical flow.

First solo exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles. Creates unglazed egg-shaped forms painted with automotive lacquer. Los Angeles car and surf culture are strong influences.

In those days everything was supposed to reflect the inherent nature of the materials, which is an old crafts idea, and consequently there wasn’t much colored sculpture prior to the 1960s. I didn’t think it was a big deal to put color on form though; LA was the city of cars and of fabrication shops where you could have anything made, so it didn’t seem unusual to me to make an industrial form and then give it a paint job.

Moves to the Ocean Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. Robert Irwin, Larry Bell, John Altoon, John Chamberlain, and Neil Williams are neighbors.

1971 Produces a series of hand-printed color silkscreen prints, "Interiors," at Gemini G. E. L.

In November, leaves California for Taos, New Mexico, with wife Happy. This move begins a critical time in his work during the period of eighteen years in which he lives outside of California.

My work changes dramatically in relation to where I'm living maybe because I've always looked to nature more than to art history.

Envisions next large undertaking, in which he pays homage to the anonymous Mexican artists who have captured his fancy since his youth in Los Angeles. The project, Happy’s Curios, after his wife, enables him to spend the next five years exploring the possibilities of pottery.

Exhibits Happy’s Curios (cabinets created by Taos furniture maker Ed Paul, filled with cups, pots, dishes, and other objects) at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Aside from Happy’s Curios, the work of the late seventies and early eighties follows a distinct aesthetic pattern. His ceramics loose their clay-like properties, as they become more and more sculptural. The objects are brightly colored, hard-edged geometric constructions. White lines delineate primary colors referencing de Stijl. Luminous skins suggest another species.

In mid-1980s, work looks like boulders with pitted surfaces. The size of pieces increases, along with their formal constitution, which becomes progressively more complex.

Everything I make has an inside because that’s the dimension I really like. I’ve been working the void for years.