Walter De Maria

Born October 1, 1935, in Albany, California. He died on July 25, 2013 in Los Angeles of a stroke. Walter De Maria was an American artist, sculptor, drummer and composer. In 1957, he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, where he earned his M.F.A. in painting two years later. De Maria and his friend, the avant-garde composer La Monte Young, participated various in Happenings and theatrical productions in the San Francisco area. In 1961, he made his first wooden box sculptures. In 1963 he worked as a drummer for The Primitives (3) the first incarnation of Reed-Cale future group The Velvet Underground. He continued to work in wood, began his "invisible drawings", and composed music. With the support of collector Robert C. Scull, De Maria started making pieces in metal in 1965. Born October 1, 1935, in Albany, California, De Maria emerged as a leader of the Earthworks movement in 1968 when he filled the Galerie Heiner Friedrich in Munich with dirt. Earthworks and serial geometric sculpture continue to occupy De Maria in the 1970s: his Three Continent Project was completed in 1972 and the Lightning Field, one of his most accomplished work of land-art, in New Mexico was finished in 1977. He lived and worked in New York. In 2000 two of his conceptual recordings from 1964 and 1968 finally came out on a self-released CD.