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| View other artists in: Design | Photography | Sculpture | Works on Paper |
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| (1928-) |
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Medium/Discipline: Design, Photography, Sculpture, Works on Paper
Birthplace: Roseau, Minnesota
Maryland Affiliation: Active while in residence
Prominent Theme: Sculpture; Abstract; Modular; Minimalist
Style/Period: Modular Constructivism; Minimalism
Gender: Male
Race/Ethnicity: White
Biography: Born in 1928 in Roseau, Minnesota, Norman Carlberg has received international acclaim. He studied at the Minneapolis School of Art and University of Illinois, followed by Yale University after Josef Albers met with Carlberg and looked at his advertising work done while serving in the Air Force from 1951 to 1955, and got him into Yale. Immediately thereafter, Albers left for Europe, leaving a strong influence behind at Yale; Albers was world-renowned and had studied and taught at the Bauhaus in Germany prior to his Yale tenure. Carlberg was appointed instructor in Sculpture at the Yale University School of Art and Architecture from 1957-58, and became Assistant Instructor in Design from 1958-59 while pursuing his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Fine Arts there.
It was at Yale that Carlberg's fine arts colleague Irwin Hauer introduced the concept of design units, or modules, to him. Carlberg has identified his style of sculpture as Modular Constructivism, which grew into its maturity and popularity in the 50's and 60's. Carlberg was for the most part a Minimalist sculptor, concerned with the formal above almost all else, executed with a deliberate process: "I felt a part of a group that (was devoted to) a kind of formal, critical thinking and was not very much at ease with thinking of art in other terms; you analysed, you looked at something, but you looked at it formally just for what it was and the message was almost always out of it." (Interview, Maryland Art Place, 1996). While a modular approach could lead one to assume that his sculptures are made of repetitive units, Baltimore Sun art critic John Dorsey asserts otherwise: "By varying not only the shape of the individual module but its scale (as well as the scale of the piece as well), its color, its bulk, its complexity and the way it interacts with other modules, Carlberg increases the interest of his work with each added sculpture." (John Dorsey, "Sculpture Benefits from Retrospective," Baltimore Sun, June 20, 1996)
After his work at Yale, Carlberg taught from 1960 to 1961 at Universidad Católica in Santiago, Chile, then took the position of director of the Rinehart School of Sculpture at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 1961. He remained at MICA for 35 years.
Sculpturally, Carlberg worked in brass, plaster, and steel. Carlberg works by making objects, with some preliminary sketching, if any. He also produced prints as well as photographs of city details he found sculpturally interesting, such as concrete columns, "ribbons of freeways that float," and textures of dirt and rocks on the ground. (Interview, 1996) A number of his photographs, including one entitled Jones Falls Expressway (1993), have received critical acclaim and recognition for their expressionistic as well as formal attrubutes. He produced collages in 1972 while in Chile on sabbatical from MICA of which he wrote, "I think that many of the forms that I make are very formal but I find (them) very sensuous," adding, "I think that both of these, the formalism in the sculpture and the eroticism and such in the collages both reflect my interests. One cannot be the other - there wasn't a form that could be both." (Interview, 1996)
Carlberg's work was shown at the Museum of Modern Art in 1959 in a show entitled, "Recent Sculpture USA." He has a few pieces in collections in Australia done in collaboration with Harry Siedler, and his work is in the permanent collections of the Addison Gallery of American Art at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, New York, the Art and Architecture Gallery at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Guggenheim Museum and The Baltimore Museum of Art. The Rouse Company, based in Columbia, Maryland, also holds his work. Commissions include a modular screen at the lobby of Baltimore City Hospital and a massive modular column for Northern Parkway Junior High School. He had a retrospective exhibition in 1996 at Maryland Art Place which exhibited his work in prints, sculpture and photography, and which celebrated the centennial of MICA's Rinehart School of Sculpture.
Education/Training: Minneapolis School of Art, 1950; University of Illinois, 1953-54; BFA 1958, MFA 1961, Yale University
Taught By: Richard Engman, Yale University
Art-related Employment: Rinehart School of Sculpture, Maryland Institute College of Art, 1961-1996
Selected References: Carlberg, Norman. "Excerpts of an Interview with Norman Carlberg," Maryland Art Place exhibition brochure. Spring 1996.
Dorsey, John. "Sculpture Benefits from Retrospective," Baltimore Sun. June 20, 1996.
Salvadori, Mario. Structured Sculpture, Galerie Chalette, New York, December 1960-January 1961.
Maryland Institutions Holding Artworks: Child's Night, Black Object, The Baltimore Museum of Art
Maryland Institutions Holding Biographical Material: The Baltimore Museum of Art, Library, Vertical File
Single-Artist Exhibitions: partial list:
An Exhibition of Sculpture: Norman Carlberg, Pennsylvania State University College of Arts and Architecture, November 5-29, 1966.
Norman Carlberg, Maryland Art Place, June 1996.
One Man Show, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1968.
Sculpture and Drawings, Jewish Community Center, Baltimore, 1974.
Notre Dame College, Baltimore, 1974.
Modular Prints, Fells Point Gallery, 1975.
Prints and Sculpture, Notre Dame College, Baltimore, 1975.
One Man Show, Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., 1975.
One Man Show, Gallery 10, Washington, D.C., 1976.
Retrospective exhibition, Maryland Art Place, 1996.
Multiple-Artist Exhibitions: partial list:
Recent Sculpture USA, Museum of Modern Art, 1959.
American Art at Mid-Century, Essex County Museum, 1959.
Traveling Show, Denver Art Museum, 1959.
Traveling Show, Los Angeles County Museum, 1960.
Traveling Show, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1960.
Structured Sculpture, Galerie Chalette, New York, 1960.
LXXI Salon Official, Museo National de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile, 1960.
Whitney Annual, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1962.
Three Man Show, Maryland Institute College of Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1964.
Rinehart Exhibit, Maryland Institute College of Art Gallery, Baltimore, 1965.
Young Collectors, Sheppard's Gallery, Baltimore, 1968.
Maryland Regional, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1969.
Maryland Artists Today, Touring Exhibit, 1969-70.
Artwork by Students of Josef Albers, Carpenter Center, Harvard University, 1974.
Maryland Biannual, Baltimore Museum of Art, 1974.
Group Show, Schenectady Museum, New York, 1977.
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