Stephen J. Kaltenbach (born 1940) is an American artist and author based in

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

Early life and education

Kaltenbach was born in Battle Creek, Michigan. He attended the

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The inst ...

between 1963 and 1967, earning a B.A. and M.A. At UC Davis, Kaltenbach studied alongside notable artists including

David Gilhooly David Gilhooly (also known as David James Gilhooly III) (April 15, 1943 – August 21, 2013), was an American ceramicist, sculptor, painter, printmaker, and professor. He is best known for pioneering the Funk art movement. He made a series of ...

, Richard Shaw and

Bruce Nauman Bruce Nauman (born December 6, 1941) is an American artist. His practice spans a broad range of media including sculpture, photography, neon, video, drawing, printmaking, and performance. Nauman lives near Galisteo, New Mexico. Life and work ...

Career

After graduating, Kaltenbach spent three years in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

, producing paintings and a variety of conceptual work including bronze time capsules, graffiti, sidewalk plaques and hoax advertisements. He exhibited alongside

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, urban, and architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material quality and exploration of ...

Eva Hesse Eva Hesse (January 11, 1936 – May 29, 1970) was a German-born American sculptor known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. She is one of the artists who ushered in the postminimal art movement in the 196 ...

Alan Saret Alan Saret (born 1944, New York City) is an American sculptor, draftsman, and installation artist, best known for his Postminimalism wire sculptures and drawings. He lives and works in Brooklyn. Education Saret graduated from Cornell Universi ...

and Bruce Nauman at the

Leo Castelli Leo Castelli (born Leo Krausz; September 4, 1907 – August 21, 1999) was an Italian-American art dealer who originated the contemporary art gallery system. His gallery showcased contemporary art for five decades. Among the movements which ...

Gallery show "Nine" in 1968, and had a solo exhibition at the

Whitney Museum of American Art The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

in 1969. In 1970 Kaltenbach left the New York contemporary art world and returned to California, taking up a position at

California State University, Sacramento California State University, Sacramento (CSUS, Sacramento State, or informally Sac State) is a public university in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1947 as Sacramento State College, it is the eleventh oldest school in the 23-campus Californi ...

where he taught until 2005. Kaltenbach chose to refashion his practice in California, abandoning public conceptual work and instead adopting the persona of a "Regional Artist" with a focus on figurative sculpture and portraiture. Kaltenbach has also produced public art pieces for the city of Sacramento. A retrospective of his career entitled 'Kaltenbach: The Beginning and The End' was exhibited at the

Manetti Shrem Museum of Art The Manetti Shrem Museum of Art is a fine arts museum located at the University of California, Davis in Davis, California. Its full name is the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. The museum opened on November 13, 2016. According t ...

at UC Davis in 2020.

Notable works

Kaltenbach remains best known for the conceptual work he produced in the late 1960s, with recent exhibitions of his bronze time capsules and other pieces from that era. His most notable painting is ''Portrait of my Father'' (1972–79), on display at the

Crocker Art Museum The Crocker Art Museum is the oldest art museum in the Western United States, located in Sacramento, California. Founded in 1885, the museum holds one of the premier collections of Californian art. The collection includes American works dating f ...

. He is also known for work inspired by a found object known as the "Slant Step" which was discovered by

William T. Wiley William Thomas Wiley (October 21, 1937April 25, 2021) was an American artist. His work spanned a broad range of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, performance, and pinball. At least some of Wiley's work has been referred to as ...

and

. He has produced drawings, sculptures, films and other work related to the step, most notably ''Slant Step 2'', now in the collection of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

Public collections

Kaltenbach's work is part of a number of public collections, including the

, the

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of ch ...

, the

Walker Art Center The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the United States and, to ...

and the

Kröller-Müller Museum The Kröller-Müller Museum () is a national art museum and sculpture garden, located in the Hoge Veluwe National Park in Otterlo in the Netherlands. The museum, founded by art collector Helene Kröller-Müller within the extensive grounds of ...

References

External links

Artist's website

Artsy profile

"Bad Ideas", a profile of Kaltenbach's exhibition "Nuclear Projects and Other Works"

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kaltenbach, Stephen American artists 1940 births University of California, Davis alumni California State University, Sacramento faculty 20th-century American artists 21st-century American artists Living people