Art Brenner (born December 27, 1924, New York, New York - died August 15, 2013, Adelaide, Australia) was an American abstract modernist sculptor. After discovering an interest in art as a student in the New York City public schools system, Brenner studied at Pratt Institute, Parsons School of Design, and the Chicago Institute of Art. Brenner began his artistic career as a painter of abstract expressionist works in the 1950s and early 1960s. He shifted his artistic practice toward sculpture, and moved from New York to Paris in 1964, where he lived for most of his career.

Brenner’s first solo exhibition was given in 1967 at Galerie Lucien Durand, Paris, and in 1979, he purchased a barge docked on the banks of the Seine River to use as a studio and living quarters. Brenner worked mainly in steel metal sculpture, often of architectural scale, which was abstract but contained a frequent figurative element drawn from Greek mythology, such as in his 1974, 42-foot steel sculpture, Winged Helios, which was designed for the autoroute outside Barcelona, Spain. His 20-foot steel structure, The Chevron Variations (1998), measured 345 feet long, the longest sculpture in the United Kingdom when it was created for the Blackpole Retail Park in Worcester.

Brenner was also the author of scholarly essays on art, including a noted article on the relationship between sculpture and architecture entitled, “Concerning Sculpture and Architecture,” which was published in the journal Leonardo in 1971. In 2013, Brenner retired and relocated to Adelaide, Australia, where he died in August of that year, at the age of 88.



References

“An American Sculptor in Paris.” CNN, 1995.

“Art Brenner, 1924-2013.” McCormick Gallery, Chicago. Accessed October 15, 2024. https://www.thomasmccormick.com/artists/art_brenner.

“Art Brenner: Sculpture.” ArtBrenner.com. Accessed October 15, 2024. https://www.artbrenner.com/index.html.

“A Parisian Sculptor in Adelaide.” The Advertiser, December 21, 2013, 82. https://login.libproxy.newschool.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/parisian-sculptor-adelaide/docview/1469642480/se-2?accountid=12261.