Lari Pittman Sold at Auction Prices

b. 1952 -

Lari George Pittman (born 1952 in Glendale, California) is a Colombian-American contemporary artist and painter. Pittman is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Painting and Drawing at the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture.

Pittman's American father met his Colombian mother while the former was working abroad in the latter's homeland. At the age of five, Pittman's family moved back to Colombia, returning to California in 1963. In contrast to his childhood in Colombia, Pittman's experience in the United States keeps him alert to "the overwhelming hatred that is exhibited by the American population and through actual legislation against homosexuals.

Pittman received his MFA from Cal Arts in 1976 studying with Elizabeth Murray, Vija Celmins, and Miriam Schapiro. Afterwards, Pittman began working in the interior design business with Angelo Donghia, where he worked with music and entertainment clientele. Pittman was the singular male student within the Feminist program in the 1970s. During this time, Pittman began showing his work at Rosamund Felsen Gallery. Pittman asserts, "One of my strongest memories from those years is of how patterning and color were so relentlessly gendered." He continues, "I’d show somebody a textile or something, and a common answer would be, no, that’s too feminine, or it’s too masculine. Always within the framework of gender construction binaries. In 1985, Pittman was shot at his Silver Lake apartment and recovered from gun shot wounds. This experience would forever impact his work and further his determination to paint large-scale.

In David Pagel's interview with Pittman, he concludes that Pittman's paintings include "imaginary organic forms, runaway arrows, and arabesques, transform ornamentation into a contemporary narrative of life and death, love and sex." He also believes "Pittman's operatic pictures propose that the world's complexity does not override passion, sincerity, and individuality. When talking about his own work, Pittman states: "at times, I purposefully orchestrate the work so that you do have that comfortable laughter when looking at it—it's full-hearted and enjoyable internally—but it's also a laughter linked to nervousness. And that's the laughter I particularly like cultivating, parlor laughter, where there's always the subtext of conversation going on, but everyone is very agreeable. Mayer Russ of Architectural Digest writes, "Pittman’s obsessions—political and personal trauma, with an incisive eye on the lamentable state of current world affairs—is a welcome tonic to the glittery, Koons-and-Hirst-variety theatrics that often dominate contemporary art discourse." Pittman targets colonial dismemberment in his newest body of work.

As a Professor of Painting at UCLA, Pittman mentored artists including Elliott Hundley, Lauren Silva, and Toba Khedoori. In 1998, he was part of the search committee that selected Ann Philbin as director of the Hammer Museum.