KEN PRICE

“Drawing is the primary thing,” Price said. “It’s where essential thinking goes on, and it’s the soul connection too. A good drawing can cut right to the essence of something.”

Drawing was a central part of Ken Price’s practice throughout his career. He found a powerful source of inspiration in the landscapes that surrounded him, including the volcanoes and seascapes of Hawaii, which he visited regularly, and the high desert of Taos, New Mexico, where he lived for many years. Describing his home in Taos, Price said, “The sky here is connected to the land; it’s not like anything I’ve seen anywhere else. The sunsets aren’t pretty and sweet, they are spectacular and amazing.”

Ken Price (1935–2012) was born in Los Angeles. After graduating from college in 1959, Price returned to Los Angeles and was given his first one-person exhibition at the now legendary Ferus Gallery in 1960. Price had one-person exhibitions at the Menil Collection in Houston, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and the Chinati Foundation in Marfa, Texas. In 2012, shortly before his untimely passing, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presented a retrospective of his work, which traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. In 2013, the Drawing Center in New York, in collaboration with Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery, organized the first survey of Price’s works on paper.