Alan Shields

Alan J. Shields (February 4, 1944December 13, 2005) was an American painter, and for a time during the 1980s, had a secondary career as a commercial boat operator, including as ferryboat captain.

Shields was born in Herington, Kansas to a farming family—his great-grandfather had been a cattle farmer who had been a homesteader on the Great Plains.

Shields often referenced his family in his own art-making.

He grew up watching his mother and two younger sisters quilting and embroidering, living on a farm required a degree of frugality and recycling, which is where Shields learned the crafts himself.

He eventually attended Kansas State University from 1963–66 where he studied civil engineering and studio art.

In his art education he closely studied the work of Buckminster Fuller.

When developing his practice, Shields referenced his studies on Fuller, pointing out that if Fuller's dome-style architecture were to become common, "...there wouldn't be any flat walls to hang a painting."

After graduating he went on to participate in Summer Theater Workshops at the University of Maine (1966–67).

In 1968, he moved to New York City where he began showing with Paula Cooper Gallery later that year and through 1991.

After his first show with Paula Cooper Gallery in 1969, Shields continued to exhibit there with solo shows until 1991.

He began his trademark three-dimensional, two-sided paintings in 1970.

Shields was immediately distinct from his New York contemporaries, who at the time were largely concerned with minimalism.

The vibrant, tactile, and labor intensive works placed him apart from the prevailing contemporary artists.

His work was extremely gestural and focused on the physicality of materials.

Unlike the minimalists, Shields held a great reverence for craft, sewing and beading are an essential component in Shields' practice.

In 1971, Shield's work was featured on the cover of Artforum magazine.

In 1971, Shields purchased a house on Shelter Island.

He began to focus on print and papermaking, making over thirty editions between 1971 and 1974.

He kept his studio in New York City for a year until the Shelter Island home became his permanent residence in 1972.

J + K (1972) – The outer framework is constructed from industrial webbing and canvas enclosing a web of fishing line strung with beads.

The work, which is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, refers to the "countercultural aesthetics of the time from tie-dye to love beads."

The New York Times notes that Shields "reinvented painting" by doing away with stretcher bars, resulting in painted canvas elements combined with other media such as fishing nets, rope, and industrial materials.

J + K is described as "a cat’s cradle of intersecting beaded fishing line and tackle."

The curvature of the fishing lines, weighted by tackle recalls the ocean waves.

During this period, he would receive the Guggenheim Fellowship and travel to South America for three months in 1973.

In 1973, Shields had a two-person show with Richard Artschwager at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago.

In a 1975 interview with artist Howardena Pindell (the two of whom are fundamental to Postminimalism and Process Art), Shields describes how he would first draw a grid in pencil on the back of a canvas, then stitch over the pencil lines with the colored thread in the bobbin and white thread on the top: "So what I did was utilize the fact that the sewing machine could...transcribe drawings that were on the back of the canvas to the front by using the bobbin threads."

Shields saw the difference between painting and sewing as marginal, and used the two methods to similar ends.

He did not give up his SoHo loft until the mid-1980s, at which point he decided to raise his family, grow his own food, become a commercial fisherman and a licensed ferryboat captain.

In 1980, he went to the Ahmadabad retreat in India.

After becoming a ferryboat captain and pursuing an additional career as a commercial fisherman, Shields' passion for fishing began to have a dialectic relationship with his artmaking.

The three-dimensional works that are suspended from the ceiling use the same ball bearing swivels used in fishing tackle and fishing gear, and he would also use backing line and monofilaments in the pieces.

In 1983 he received his first license to operate a commercial watercraft for up to six passengers.

He would go on to get a one-hundred ton boating license and become a captain for the North Ferry Company, connecting Shelter Island and Greenport, New York.

He converted a greenhouse attached to his home into a studio space.

In 1999, he decided to move again on Shelter Island, and relocated to a ranch for the remainder of his life.

In 2011 he had his first show with his subsequent New York gallery: Greenberg Van Doren, who would go on to exhibit his famous Maze installation in 2012 at their gallery space and in 2013 at SITELAB: 3.

After this period he had two more solo exhibitions with the gallery, in 2013 and 2019.

Throughout his life, Shields exhibited in commercial gallery spaces throughout the U.S., Europe, South America, and Asia.

When the gallery became Van Doren Waxter Shields continued to have solo exhibitions in 2016 with Alan Shields: Space Sisters work from the 1970s, again in 2018 with Alan Shields Rolling Orbit: Prints from the 1970s, and in 2020, with Alan Shields: Worms with Bedroom Eyes.