A preeminent American sculptor, Kendrick’s thoroughgoing practice has involved the use of cast bronze, concrete, a variety of woods, rubber, resin, as well as investigations with cast paper. Kendrick addresses philosophical, conceptual, and fundamental questions around sculpture: namely, the relationship between the object as we experience it and the clearly evident means by which it was created.
Mel Kendrick (b. 1949, Boston, MA) was the subject of a major retrospective in 2021 at the Addison Gallery of American Art in Andover, MA, which travelled to the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY, in 2022. He has been included in numerous significant solo and group exhibitions internationally, beginning with his solo debut at Artist’s Space, New York, NY in 1974. In 1984, his work was included in The International Survey of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the following year in the Whitney Biennial. In 2009 Kendrick was commissioned to create five monumental concrete sculptures for Madison Square Park in Manhattan. He was named a 2023 National Academician by the National Academy of Design.
Kendrick’s work is included in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Dallas Museum of Art, TX; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; Saint Louis Art Museum, MO; Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN; The Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; Toledo Museum of Art, OH; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY, among many others. Kendrick lives and works in New York.