David Shapiro (1944-2014) was an American multimedia known for his symbol based abstractions. The motifs which the artist incorporated into his work partly derived from Buddhist hand symbols and yoga poses, which he would then translated onto burlap, nylon screes, and Japanese papers, creating a textured surface on top of the canvas. For example, in his painting Clearing 15 (2011), Shapiro printed a swirling pattern on to a piece of yellow, hand-colored piece of paper. Born in 1944 in Brooklyn, NY, he studied at the Pratt Institute before receiving his M.F.A. from Indiana University in 1968. Shapiro died in 2014 in New York, NY after a long battle with cancer. Today, his works are held in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the University of Chicago, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others.
David Shapiro
Studios
Putnam
David Shapiro worked in the Putnam studio.
The Graphics Studio (as it was originally named) was converted to its present use in 1972–1974 through a grant from the Putnam Foundation, and originally served the property as both a power house and pump house. Well water was pumped from a large cistern to Hillcrest, the Foreman’s Cottage, and the lower buildings closer to…