Molded and painted acrylic in four parts, 1972. Assembled approximately 1016x1016x165 mm; 40x40x6½ inches.
Provenance: private collection.
Gum Drops is the first sculpture by Ben Hazard to be offered at auction. Composed of four interlocking acrylic components, the primary colors with reflective finishes form to meld the boundaries of painting and sculpture. Multi-media artist, professor, activist, and arts administrator, Hazard was born in Newport, Rhode Island, and moved to Harlem, New York to live with his aunt after the passing of his mother. He joined the United States Air Force as a sign painter and was stationed in California after completing high school. After his Air Force service, he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with distinction from the California College of Arts & Crafts, Oakland, and completed his Master of Arts degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Living in Oakland in the late 1960s, Hazard was inspired by the Black Arts Movement which led him to execute works rooted in the Black experience. One of his seminal works Medal of Honor, 1967 was included in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's iteration of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963-1983.
Throughout his career he taught at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, University of Texas, Austin, University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University, Merritt and Laney Colleges, and the University of Nevada, Reno, where he was the first full-time Black faculty member in 1969-70 at the age of 29. Hazard went on to become the first Black Curator, Special Exhibits and Education for the Oakland Museum from 1970-81.
Hazard was appointed by President Jimmy Carter to the Institute of Museum Service Board in Washington, D.C., and sat on panels for the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities. From 2011 - 2016, while he was on the faculty at the University of New Mexico, he was commissioned to execute monuments to the Tuskegee Airmen, Navajo Code Talkers, and the Buffalo Soldiers, at New Mexico Veteran's Memorial in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2009 he was commissioned to create a portrait of President Barack Obama and his family, which, was displayed in the family quarters of the Obama White House.
