Collection Information
Size: 164 Pages, Transcript
Format: Originally recorded on 4 sound cassettes. Reformatted in 2010 as 14 digital wav files. Duration is 7 hrs., 27 min.
Summary: An interview of Rockne Krebs conducted 1990 Jan. 27-Feb.3, by Benjamin Forgey, for the Archives of American Art.
Krebs discusses growing up in Kansas City; his early interest in art; childhood art classes at Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; his family and their home; studying sculpture at the University of Kansas; influential teachers; attending Naval Officer's Training School; his U.S. Navy service and art education while in the Navy; working in Washington, D.C. as the Public Affairs Officer for Vice-Admiral Frost in the 1960s; his wife Denise and their daughter Heather; meeting Anthony Caro, Kenneth Noland, and Jules Olitski; his "Chevron" series; his interest in planes, light, space, and "dematerializing" sculpture; the influence of Walter Hopps; working with laser specialists and Hewlett Packard equipment; his outdoor city-scale laser sculpture; and his early principal patrons Mr. and Mrs. Philip M. Stern and works created for them. Krebs also describes in detail his laser sculptures for the New Orleans Museum of Art (1971) and St. Petersburg (1975-1976) and comments on economic, political and social aspects of the art world.