McCracken John

American artist and sculptor, an exponent of Minimalism. After graduating from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California, McCracken began his career as a painter. However, feeling constrained by his chosen medium, he turned more toward sculpture in order to gain a more three-dimensional effect. He works with blocks, slabs and columns in order to produce basic or neutral forms, and his signature work, the plank, falls into a category somewhere between painting and sculpture. While much of his earlier work was done in ‘candy’ car colors, one of his more recent undertakings was done exclusively in stainless steel. The focus of his work is to create with pure abstract form in order to mirror pure thought. Married twice, he had two children with his first wife whom he later divorced. He died April 8, 2011 in Manhattan after a year of an unspecified illness. Link to Wikipedia biography Read less