Tuesday, May 27, 2025

William Christenberry

William Christenberry
KKK Doll
1963
plastic, wood, satin and felt
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC


William Christenberry
Church across Early Cotton, Pickensville, Alabama
1964
C-print
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

William Christenberry
Untitled
1972
graphite, ink, tempera, and oil-pastel on paper
(study for poster)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
Untitled
(Equal Employment Opportunity is the Law)
1973
screenprint (draft poster)
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
High Kudzu near Akron, Alabama
1978-
C-print-
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
Green Warehouse, Newbern, Alabama
1978-
C-print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
Green Warehouse
1978
painted wood on red clay base
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
Palmist Building (South End), Havana Junction, Alabama
1979
C-print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
River House
1980
painted wood, metal and paper on red clay base
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
Side of Cotton Warehouse, Newbern, Alabama
1980
C-print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
Hologram
1983
hologram in glass
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
Storefront - Stewart, Alabama
1984
C-print
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

William Christenberry
Dream Building V
1986
painted wood and metal on red clay base
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Jerry Thompson
William Christenberry in the Studio
1988
color transparency
Archives of American Art, Washington DC

William Christenberry
Wall with Green Sphere
1992
assemblage of partly painted metal and wood
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
Wall Construction with Blue Star
1994
assemblage of partly painted metal, wood and paper
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
K-Form #2
2001
encaustic and wax on panel
Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Washington DC

William Christenberry
Dream Building in Landscape
2001
painted wood on red clay base
Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

William Christenberry
Southern Monument on Column
2006
painted wood and metal
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

from The Summer People

These two were summer neighbors.
They loved without desire.
Both now pushing fifty,
Had elsewhere played with fire. 

Of all the summer people
Who dwelt in pigeonholes,
Old Navy or Young Married,
The Bad Sports, the Good Souls,

These were the Amusing,
The Unconventional ones –
Plus Andrew's Jane (she used a cane
And shook it at his puns)

And Nora's mother Margaret
With her dawn-colored hair,
Her novels laid in Europe
That she wrote in a garden chair. 

– James Merrill (1969)