Carl Andre - Letter from Dusseldorf: ..."very pleasant to visit Dorothee and Konrad..." for Sale

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Letter from Dusseldorf: ..."very pleasant to visit Dorothee and Konrad...", 1979

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About The Work

Unique piece of art historical ephemera. This is a stamped, postmarked postcard from Dusseldorf Germany dated 19 September 1979, handwritten by Carl Andre to his parents Mr. and Mrs. G.H. Andre in Massachusetts. It was acquired from the collection of Andre's parents - Mr. and Mrs. George Hans Andre. (Andre famously attended Phillips Exeter Academy in Massachusetts, his home state, as did another famous alum - Frank Stella, though they would not actually meet until years later). The image of postcard depicts a different German city - which Andre acknowledges in the letter. In the 1970s, Minimalist Art was the rage - perhaps more so in Europe than the US, and Andre loved to travel to Europe. Andre's letter, not unexpectedly, is written in the artist's quintessential laconic style - in all caps.

19 Sep '79, Dusseldor 9:00 p.m. DEAR M & G: IT IS VERY PLEASANT TO VISIT DOROTHEE & KONRAD, BERTA & KASPER AGAIN -->THE BAXTERS' THREW A MOST DELIGHTFUL BIRTHDAY PARTY FOR ME ON SUNDAY IN DENHAM - THOMAS IS CERTAINLY A LITTLE GIANT, BOTH FEARLESS AND AMIABLE --> THIS CARD IS OF A VERY PLEASANT CITY WHICH I ONCE VISITED - I LOST MY DUSSELDORF POSTCARDS TODAY IN A BAR WHILE STILL QUITE SOBER - LOVE & BE WELL @

Courtesy of Alpha 137 Gallery

About Carl Andre

Carl Andre is considered a forefather of American Minimalism. His extensive work, including sculptures and public artworks, revolved around placing and sorting quotidian materials like bricks, plates, and blocks. Andre moved to New York in 1956 and shortly thereafter, he befriended Constantin Brancusi through former classmates Hollis Frampton and Frank Stella, and began working on the Pennsylvania Railroad—influences that inspired his attachment to working class ideals, order, and factory-finished materials. In the 1960s, his adoration of linear formats led him to explore concrete poetry and text works. Andre’s use of the grid reduced his work to the quality of his materials and their role in his realization of an idea, often dependent upon and specific to the environment in which they were originally installed. He believed in sculpture as place, “an area within which an environment has been altered in such a way as to make the general environment more conspicuous.”

Andre has exhibited extensively both abroad and in America. He has had solo exhibitions at the Guggenheim Museum, New York, St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, Detroit Institute of the Arts, Michigan, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, to name a few. His work has been featured in group shows at institutions including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Tate Gallery, London, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and MoMA PS 1, New York, among many others. He participated in dOCUMENTA 4 (1968) and 7 (1982) in Kassel, Germany, the 10th Biennale Tokyo, and the Venice Biennale in 1978. His career catapulted after his inclusion in Primary Structures at the Jewish Museum in 1966. Andre was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1984, and the Roswitha Haftmann Foundation Prize in 2011. He was a founding member and participant in the Art Workers Coalition between 1969 and 1971.