Robert Engman

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American sculptor (1927–2018)

title: "Robert Engman" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1927-births", "2018-deaths", "rhode-island-school-of-design-alumni", "yale-school-of-art-alumni", "yale-university-faculty", "university-of-pennsylvania-faculty", "people-from-belmont,-massachusetts", "sculptors-from-massachusetts", "united-states-navy-personnel-of-world-war-ii", "20th-century-american-sculptors", "american-male-sculptors", "20th-century-american-male-artists"] description: "American sculptor (1927–2018)" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Engman" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary American sculptor (1927–2018) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox artist"]

FieldValue
birth_nameRobert M. Engman
imageRobert_Engman,_sculptor,_2016_Portrait.jpg
captionEngman with After B.K.S. Iyengar,
Doylestown, PA (2016)
birth_date
birth_placeBelmont, Massachusetts, U.S.
death_date
death_placeBryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S.
spouseMargaret Engman
(m. ~1955; div. 1977)
Nancy L. Porter (m. 1985)
fieldSculpture
trainingRhode Island School of Design, BFA; Yale University, MFA (1955)
works{{Unbulleted list
Construction No. 1 (1961-2) [https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:hmsg_66.1778?qEngman%2C+Robert&record=4&hlterm=Engman%2C%2BRobert&inline=true Construction No. 1 (1961-2)] Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Retrieved 2020-3-20
After Iyengar (1975)[https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:hmsg_79.152?qEngman%2C+Robert&record=7&hlterm=Engman%2C%2BRobert&inline=true After Iyengar (1975)] Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Retrieved 2020-3-20}}
::

| birth_name = Robert M. Engman | image = Robert_Engman,_sculptor,_2016_Portrait.jpg | caption = Engman with After B.K.S. Iyengar, Doylestown, PA (2016) | birth_date = | birth_place = Belmont, Massachusetts, U.S. | death_date = | death_place = Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S. | spouse = Margaret Engman (m. ~1955; div. 1977) Nancy L. Porter (m. 1985) | field = Sculpture | training = Rhode Island School of Design, BFA; Yale University, MFA (1955) | works = {{Unbulleted list |Construction No. 1 (1961-2) |Triune (1975) |After Iyengar (1975)}}

Robert Engman (April 29, 1927 – July 4, 2018) was an American sculptor with works in the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum, MOMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, numerous college museums, and private collections.

Early life

Engman was born in 1927 to parents who had emigrated from Sweden. He joined the Navy at the age of 15, serving in World War II in the Pacific. He graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA, and from Yale University with an MFA in Painting and in Sculpture (1955), where he studied with sculptor José de Rivera and Josef Albers. Albers wrote of him: “Only a few independent ones were courageous enough to concentrate on the plane—the in-between of volume and line—as a broad sculptural concept and promise.”

Career

The Yale Years: 1953-1964

Engman taught sculpture at Yale University, and, in 1960, was appointed director of Yale's sculpture program in its Graduate School of Fine Arts. He worked closely with Josef Albers, James Rosati, Ann Lehman, and Paul Rudolph, and produced his monumental work, Column, (1963) for Rudolph's new building for the Yale Art & Architecture program. Represented by Arthur and Madeleine Lejwa's influential Galerie Chalette in New York, his work attracted the attention of Joseph Hirshhorn, who began to actively collect Engman's sculptures.

Philadelphia and the Grand Scale: 1964-1978

In 1964, Engman moved to Pennsylvania, where he became director of the University of Pennsylvania's graduate studies in sculpture. He was a frequent visiting critic at East Coast schools of art during his teaching career. In the 1960s and '70s, his career flourished, with successful New York gallery shows and larger and larger scale commissions, culminating in Triune,(1975) a 20-foot-high structure of interlocking bronze curves.

Haverford: the Private Studio: After 1978

The physical effort required to complete Triune brought a check to Engman's artistic drive to "dominate the materials." In 1978, he changed his approach to art. With rare exceptions, Engman eschewed the factory approach to sculpture, preferring to personally construct his pieces. He retreated from the world of large-scale commissions, and began work on a series of more intimately-scaled pieces that did not require a workshop of helpers to complete.

Theory of Sculpture

The sinuous curves of Engman's work are derived from the artist’s explorations of minimal surfaces to generate sculptural form. Minimal surfaces are mathematically the most economical connections between loops or lines in three-dimensional space. Engman created assemblages of minimal surface configurations to form geometrically-based sculptures that could, at the time of their production, be described mathematically only after they had been physically created in metal or wood. In Engman's own words, "they cannot be conceived of through any other system than that of the giving of substance to thought." Others have been fascinated with the science and mathematics of such surfaces, including the late R. Buckminster Fuller.

Works

  • A Study in Growth, (1958) in the MOMA permanent collection.
  • Engman's work in the Hirshhorn is represented by two large scale pieces, Untitled, (1968-1969), and After Iyengar (1978), and upwards of thirty of his smaller works.
  • Works in the Whitney: Construction, (1960), Moon, Number 2, (1964).
  • His largest sculpture, Triune (1975), continues to stand at the southwest corner of Philadelphia City Hall.
  • Kings (1975) is at 78th and Lindbergh Streets, also in Philadelphia.
  • Students collaborated with Engman to create the Peace Symbol (1967) sculpture which was installed in front of the Van Pelt Library at Penn in 1983.

MIT Barker Library.jpg|Untitled (1968), suspended inside the Great Dome at MIT Tiune Engman.JPG|Triune (1975), near Philadelphia City Hall Peace symbol Penn.JPG|Peace Symbol (1967) was created in collaboration with Penn students Peace symbol Penn Detail.JPG|Peace Symbol, detail (1967)

Exhibitions (not complete)

Group

:Recent Sculpture U.S.A (May - Aug 1959) MOMA, New York, NY :Structured Sculpture (1960), Galerie Chalette, New York, NY :Modern Sculpture from the Joseph H. Hirshhorn Collection (Oct 1962 - Jan 1963), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY :Annual Exhibition 1966: Contemporary Sculpture and Prints (Dec 1966 - Feb 1967), Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Solo

:Recent Sculpture (Feb - Mar 1960), Stable Gallery, New York, NY :Shifting the Limits: Robert Engman’s Structural Sculpture (Oct 2016 - Feb 2017), James A. Michener Art Museum, Doylestown, PA

References

References

  1. [https://www.inquirer.com/philly/obituaries/robert-m-engman-91-creator-of-sculptures-great-and-small-20180710.html Cook, Bonnie L. ''Obituaries: Robert M. Engman, 91, creator of sculptures great and small,''] The Philadelphia Inquirer (July 18, 2018) Retrieved 2020-03-19
  2. [https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:hmsg_66.1778?q=Engman%2C+Robert&record=4&hlterm=Engman%2C%2BRobert&inline=true ''Construction No. 1'' (1961-2)] Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Retrieved 2020-3-20
  3. [https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:hmsg_79.152?q=Engman%2C+Robert&record=7&hlterm=Engman%2C%2BRobert&inline=true ''After Iyengar'' (1975)] Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Retrieved 2020-3-20
  4. [https://hirshhorn.si.edu/collection/search/result/?edan_q=Robert%2BEngman ''Robert Engman Sculptures,''] Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Retrieved 2020-3-20
  5. Schiffer, Nancy ''Robert Engman: Structural Sculpture,'' {{ISBN. 978-0764342295 retrieved 2020-03-18
  6. (December 29, 2016). "Sculptor Robert Engman featured in monographic exhibition at the Michener Art Museum". Art Daily.
  7. [http://www.yale.edu/publicart/column.html ''Column, 1963'', Public art at Yale]
  8. "Robert Engman". MIT.
  9. [https://culturenow.org/entry&permalink=09110&seo=Column_Robert-Engman-and-Yale-University Engman, Robert, ''Column,'' (1963)] Culture Now: Museum Without Walls. Retrieved 2020-3-20
  10. [https://collections.si.edu/search/results.htm?q=Engman%2C+Robert&start=0 Galerie Chalette Records], Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Museum, Washington, DC.
  11. (1970). "The Creative Experience". University of Michigan.
  12. "CultureNOW - Untitled: Robert Engman and MIT Public Art Collection".
  13. [http://www.philart.net/artist.php?id=64 Robert Engman page, Philadelphia Public Art @ philart.net]
  14. [https://www.moma.org/collection/works/80861?artist_id=1737&locale=en&page=1&sov_referrer=artist Engman, Robert, ''A Study in Growth,''] MOMA, New York, NY. Object number 27.1960. Retrieved 2020-3-20
  15. [https://whitney.org/collection/works/671 ''Construction 1960,'' Robert Engman, (1960)], Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Accession: 66.22.
  16. [https://whitney.org/collection/works/670 ''Moon, Number 2,'' Robert Engman, (1964)], Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Accession: 65.7.
  17. "CultureNOW - Peace Symbol: Robert Engman and University of Pennsylvania".

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1927-births2018-deathsrhode-island-school-of-design-alumniyale-school-of-art-alumniyale-university-facultyuniversity-of-pennsylvania-facultypeople-from-belmont,-massachusettssculptors-from-massachusettsunited-states-navy-personnel-of-world-war-ii20th-century-american-sculptorsamerican-male-sculptors20th-century-american-male-artists