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Karl Albert Kasten (March 5, 1916 – May 3, 2010) was an American painter, printmaker, and educator, from the San Francisco Bay Area.
The same year, with financial help from his older brother Fred, Karl furthered his artistic advancement at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) and his explorations of art continued from there. Following his graduation from San Francisco Polytechnic High School, Kasten pursued an education in fine art.
Kasten was also an editorial cartoonist and Arts Editor for The Daily Californian newspaper. His cartoons regularly featured reflections on the New Deal and the conflicts in Europe. By coincidence the success of Berkeley's Golden Bears also marked an interesting chapter in Kasten's artistic adventure. As part of the Rally Committee, Kasten designed and directed the for the 1938 Rose Bowl against Alabama's Crimson Tide. The card sequence depicted Berkeley's Campanile covered over by a surging red tide. As the tide receded, a bear appeared in a rowboat and rowed across the tide. Cal won, 13-0. Kasten describes the stunts as, "The greatest work of art I ever did." He went on to complete his B.A and M.A at UC Berkeley. Following his graduation he taught briefly at the California School of Fine Arts but the attack on Pearl Harbor led him to wartime service.
Kasten's paintings are predominantly Acrylic paint on canvas, but he also works in watercolor and gouache. The graphics are primarily drawings in pencil, monoprints, drypoints and collagraphs. In the 1960s he began working in collography which is a variation of the etching process first practiced by Rudolph Nesch in the 1930s. Kasten's collographs are noteworthy for the sensitivity in texture and for the use of insertable parts such as coins and found objects to print a range of colors.
In addition to his wide record of painting exhibitions, Karl Kasten is known worldwide as a master printer. In 1950, he established the Printmaking program and a course in Materials and Techniques at UC Berkeley. Kasten's aim and underlying credo with the courses was that printmaking could equal traditional painting through creative exploration. After viewing his colorful etchings of the 1950s, art critic Alfred Frankenstein observed that Kasten had "discovered a new softness, liquidity, and fluency of effect in the bitten plate and with this a new way of expressing the modern artist's preoccupation with space and movement." Susan Landauer recognized Kasten in her monograph Breaking Type: The Art of Karl Kasten, with one or two exceptions 'there were few examples of serious printmaking among Abstract Expressionists in New York.' Kasten has also been recognized for his printing accomplishments with the 1997 Distinguished Artist award of the California Society of Printmakers, the Humanities Research Fellowship and Tamarind Lithography Fellowship. David Acton refers to Kasten succinctly as "the dean of Bay Area printmaking."
In 1960 Kasten unexpectedly met Willem de Kooning at an art gathering. The meeting resulted in Kasten inviting de Kooning to the Berkeley campus where he pulled his first lithographs. Kasten has since lectured widely on the unique tools, technique and genius which de Kooning employed in the two lithographs.
In the 1970s, he designed a lightweight press (The KB Press) in conjunction with the Berglin Corporation that can now be found in schools and studios around the world.
His works are in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Oakland Art Museum; San Jose Museum of Art; New York Public Library; Museum of Modern Art, New York City; M. H. de Young Memorial Museum; Achenback Collection; Musée des Beaux Arts, Rennes; Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, New Zealand; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Texts dealing with his work include "Etching" by L. Edmondson, 1973; "Modern Woodcut Techniques" by A. Kurasaki, 1977; "The California Style", by G. McClelland and J. Last, 1985; "Breaking Type, The Art of Karl Kasten" by Susan Landauer.
Kasten retired from teaching in 1983 but his passion for art and learning kept him busy. He continued to lecture occasionally, paint enthusiastically, and work on his memoirs until his death. He also continued to draw.
Collections
Kasten has exhibited in the São Paulo Bicentennial and World Print III Traveling Show, as well as the M. H. de Young Museum and California Palace of the Legion of HAuckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmakionor, the Art Institute of Chicago, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among others.
External links
Categories: 20th-century American Painters, American Male Painters, 21st-century American Painters, 21st-century American Male Artists, Painters From California, 1916 Births, 2010 Deaths, College Of Marin Alumni, University Of California, Berkeley Alumni, San Francisco Art Institute Alumni, University Of Michigan Faculty, 20th-century American Male Artists, San Francisco Art Institute Faculty
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