Pink Cartons

Robert Barber is a painter and sculptor who loves the physical act of creation and is fascinated by the relationship between two-dimensional and three-dimensional objects. He constructs his sculptures by using pieces of scavenged cardboard. In Pink Cartons, the die-cut shapes and folded forms of cardboard boxes are readily apparent. It examines spaces, voids, and planes, all on a flat surface. Though sculptural in its analysis, the drawing’s making is painterly, with layered and blended colors. A Minneapolis native, Barber earned his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Minnesota in 1952. A prolific painter and sculptor, it would be six decades before he received significant public recognition. Then, at the age of 93, in 2015, the Tucson Museum of Contemporary Art organized a major retrospective of his career. He soon had a series of gallery exhibitions in New York, and this drawing was selected by a jury of famous artists as a gift to Mia.