Tony Delap

de Barbara Rose, David Pagel, Tony DeLap

A legendary figure in Californian art, Tony DeLap (born 1927) was associated with Los Angeles' 1960s Finish Fetish school (alongside the likes of Craig Kaufman and Larry Bell), and has been a mentor to some of California's most notable artists, including Bruce Nauman, James Turrell and John McCracken, who all studied with him. Where many artists of the Finish Fetish school eschewed the material facture of their works, DeLap has almost always chosen to construct his work himself, meticulously producing freestanding sculptures in aluminum, fiberglass, lacquer, Plexiglas, resin and molded plastics and fabrics. DeLap was included in the two shows that helped to define the Minimalist movement - 'Primary Structures' at the Jewish Museum (1966) and 'American Sculpture of the Sixties' at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (1967) - and his work brilliantly merges the austerity of Minimalism with Op art illusionism.