Frank Gehry

Gehry is celebrated for groundbreaking architectural designs in which he pursues a fascination with primal, natural forms, conveying his sense that postmodernist architecture limited itself by confining its points of reference to the discipline’s own history; looking further, he seeks to escape that sentimental tendency. He has also produced significant bodies of sculpture and furniture, from Easy Edges (1969–73) and Experimental Edges (1979–82)—chairs and tables made from corrugated cardboard—to bentwood furniture designed for Knoll (1989–92). The Fish Lamps series evolved from a 1983 commission from the Formica Corporation to make use of their ColorCore plastic laminate. Gehry was inspired by the material’s scalelike appearance to produce piscine forms featuring ColorCore fragments affixed to molded wire armatures.

In Crocodile Lamp, Gehry reiterates a fascination with animals that has also found expression in Bear with Us (2014), a life-size stainless-steel sculpture now in the sculpture garden of the New Orleans Museum of Art, and an equine sculpture produced for Cheval Blanc in Paris. A linked interest in the natural landscape is reflected in the steel tapestry he created for the façade of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial in Washington, DC, in 2020. Also included in Ruminations are several small works in ink, watercolor, and acrylic on paper. In these loose, joyful drawings, Gehry expresses the energetic motion of the piscine form in organic networks of black line and patches of liquid color that resonate with his architectural sketches and studies.