Stephen De Staebler

1933Born Webster Groves, Michigan

2011Died Berkeley, California

EDUCATION

1951 Black Mountain College, NC; studied with Ben Shahn, Robert Motherwell

1954 Fulbright Scholarship

1954 BA Religion, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ

1957 Brooklyn Museum School, Brooklyn, NY, Studied with Ka-Kwong Hui

1961 MFA, MA Art History University of California, Berkeley, CA; studied with Peter Voulkos

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE.

1961—Studio artist

1961 Taught, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA

1961-1967 Taught, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA

1967—1992 Associate Professor of Sculpture, San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA

BIOGRAPHY

Stephen DeStaebler is known for abstract figural sculptures. DeStaebler studied ceramics with Peter Voulkos at the University of California, Berkeley.  He went on to become an important artist in the California figural clay movement creating porcelain and stoneware figures. 

 Initially working in a horizontal format, by 1971 he began experimenting with methods of forming more vertical structures.  A visit to John Mason’s studio resulted in the use of armatures to support the vertical forms. By 1975 DeStaebler had developed a method of arranging wet segments into layered pyramidal forms. Allowing the clay to shrink, crack, slump and warp as it dried, he created a sense of geological strata. His monumental totems of eight to nine feet tall evolved by the 1980s, requiring him to fire them in sections. Built using deconstructed or fragmented figures, especially legs, he achieved the look of totems discovered on an archeological dig. He further reinforced this reference by rubbing the surfaces with colored oxides or mixing the oxides into the clay body. The nature of his work reflects the merging of the influences of his time: exploring the damaged ancient sculptures and religious statues at post-WWII sites in Europe in the early 1950s and the influence of Peter Voulkos’ emphasis on clay’s organic properties. DeStaebler continues to influence young figural ceramists, not only because of the originality of his approach to the material, the monumental scale and distortion of the figural totems, but as importantly, the spirituality and emotional power of these works.

In the late 1980's, when making monumental clay totems became too difficult, DeStaebler turned to bronze. The new material allowed him to create pieces that were visually lighter.