About

Wendell Dayton (1938-2019) was a Los Angeles-based artist who created sculpture for six decades. At the age of 80, a few years before his death, and after a lifetime of rarely showing his work, Dayton was celebrated by major galleries, institutions, and the arts media.

Dayton’s work can be best understood in the context of the Park Place Gallery Group, which between 1963 and 1967 was heavily influencing artistic activity—especially sculpture—in New York and the development of what would later be deemed “Minimalism.” At the same time, his sculpture was in dialogue with various others, from 20th century masters—such as the Dadaists, Pablo Picasso, and David Smith—to contemporaries like Anthony Caro or artists working with ephemeral materials, who eventually fell under the label “Postminimalists.”

Wendell Dayton was born in Spokane, Washington, on March 1, 1938, and received his BA in Fine Art from Indiana University in 1960. After graduation, he moved to New York City, where he then lived from 1960-1972. In his first few years in New York, Dayton moved on from painting, which had been the focus of his undergraduate degree, and began creating sculpture—initially in wood, then in various metals, and then stainless steel.

In New York, Dayton had a few small exhibitions in lofts and other spaces and became friendly with artists such as Robert Grosvenor (who was part of the Park Place Gallery) and James Rosenquist. Dayton would also often go to the Cedar Tavern, frequented by Franz Klein, John Chamberlain, and Willem de Kooning, and he loved to see live jazz, which became a major influence on his life and work. In 1966, Dayton met Alice DeWitt, a flutist who was a student at the Manhattan School of Music. In 1970 they married, and in 1971, their son, Sky was born. In 1972, Dayton moved to Los Angeles, renting a home in Silver Lake from the widow of Richard Neutra, the renowned modernist architect, and Dayton set up a small studio in the back. In 1975, DeWitt and Dayton divorced and they shared custody of Sky. For the next few decades, Dayton focused on making a living as a carpenter and putting Sky through school.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Dayton occasionally exhibited his work in small shows at local galleries, such as LA Artcore. In 2017, Sky shared photographs of his father’s sculptures with Michael Ovitz, the legendary art collector. Ovitz soon visited Dayton’s studio and afterwards mentioned the visit to Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the gallerist Tim Blum.

After sending their curators to see Dayton’s works at his sprawling two-acre studio in Los Angeles, LACMA acquired a piece for its permanent collection, and Blum offered to mount a solo exhibition of Dayton’s work. In June 2018, Blum & Poe Los Angeles presented an ambitious survey of Dayton's sculptures, spanning from the 1960s to the present, and in that same month, Dayton’s work was also featured in Blum & Poe’s booth at Art Basel in Basel, Switzerland.

Wendell Dayton died on August 26, 2019. His work is in major collections in the United States and abroad.  


Further Reading (Selected Press)

“Wendell Dayton, L.A. Artist Renowned for Large Steel Sculptures, Has Died,” Artsy, August 1, 2019.
Li, Jennifer S. “Wendell Dayton at Blum & Poe,” Art in America, vol. 106, no. 8, Sept. 2018, pp. 112–113.
Slenske, Michael. “The 80-Year-Old Sculptor Who L.A.'s Art World is Buzzing About,” Artsy, June 29, 2018.
Zara, Jenelle. “A California Sculptor Gets His Moment in the Sun, at Age 80,” New York Times Style Magazine, June 28, 2018.
Perrotin, Emmanuel, et al. “What to Collect Now,” Harper’s Bazaar, no. 3636, Sept. 2015, p. 484.