Peter Alexander

Born in Los Angeles in 1939, Peter Alexander rose to prominence in the 1960s with his cast polyester resin sculptures. Alexander’s decision to utilize resin as an artistic material in the early 1960s was something of an epiphany. He had poured the material into a Dixie Cup to seal his surfboard, but found that over time the resin hardened into a translucent circle. This realization heralded the creation of Alexander’s iconic polyester resin sculptures that would position him as a key figure in the Los Angeles art scene and a vanguard of the California Light and Space movement. Alexander’s practice spanned painting, drawing, lithography, and polaroid photography. When examining his work in these alternate mediums, the artist’s attentiveness to color becomes incredibly evident.

Alexander showed his work at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the San Diego Museum of Art, California; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; and other international institutions. His work can be found in many of these collections as well as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the J. Paul Getty Museum, California; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California; and other major museums.

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