Bob

Ceramic Sculpture
96" x 22 x 28

Arneson was born in Benicia, California, then a small blue-collar town. He graduated from Benicia High School and spent much of his early life as a cartoonist for a local paper. Arneson studied art education in Oakland, California and went on to receive an MFA in 1958.

Starting in the 1960s, Arneson and several other California artists began to abandon the traditional manufacture of functional items in favor of using everyday objects to make confrontational statements. The new movement was dubbed " Funk Art," and Arneson is considered the "father of the ceramic Funk movement."

Arneson used common objects in his work, which included both ceramic sculptures and drawings. He appeared in many of his own pieces — as a chef, a man picking his nose, a jean-jacketed hipster in sunglasses.