Guy Dill (b. 1946) American, Framed Mixed Media. Signed and dated '99 bottom right. Title bottom middle: "Ipercoop." "Chianti Pop Series". Two informative labels on back. 1999. Framed.

China marker, graphite, and watercolor. 

Overall Size: 33 x 25 1/2 in. 

Sight Size: 29 3/4 x 22 1/4 in. 

Depth: 1 1/2 in. 

#3541 . 

Guy Girard Dill was born on May 30th, 1946 in Jacksonville, Florida. The family moved to Malibu, California shortly after he was born, living in a colony of blacklisted writers, which exposed him early on to many producers, actors, and others in the film world. His mother was a portrait painter, and his older brother, Laddie John Dill, went on to become a successful artist in his own right. Guy served in the US Coast Guard from 1963 to 1967 to avoid serving in combat in Vietnam, and had planned to become a captain and start a company of charter schooners. However, in 1966 he visited his brother at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and became enamored with the life drawing class he was taking, ultimately enrolling in the school and receiving a BFA with Honors in 1970. By the time he graduated his experiences as a sailor had led him to explore sculpture, incorporating enormous gear-like designs into his work. He settled in the Venice area, spending most of his time among young hippie artists who called themselves the “Venice Mafia,” a collective of individuals who inspired each other but still worked separately. He acquired a 12,500 square foot studio and began to build pieces for it, working alongside seminal architect Frank Gehry experimenting with structural concepts. Guy spent a few months working alongside his brother in New York City, but found it a “constricting” scene and soon returned to California. Irving Blum, the gallerist who introduced Andy Warhol’s work to the West Coast at the Ferus Gallery, discovered Dill in 1971, giving him a coveted spot in a group show there. Another big break was his inclusion in the show “Ten Young Artists: Theodoron Awards” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York that same year. Guy experimented constantly with glass, aluminum, steel, wood, and concrete, moving from lighter to heavier objects and then back again. He became obsessed with the tension and juxtaposition between different materials, and his large-scale installation work rapidly appeared around the world, from California to Sweden to Japan. With pieces in the Smithsonian and Museum of Modern Art and a stint as a teacher at UCLA, he became the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and is considered a driving force behind many arts organizations in California and beyond. He and his wife, Mary Ann, reside in Santa Monica, where he still sculpts, draws, and paints.

Spots along border.