Billy Al Bengston (American, 1937) was born in Dodge City, Kansas. After moving to California in 1952, he enrolled at the California College of Arts and Crafts where two artists on the faculty, Richard Diebenkorn (American, 1922–1993) and Sabro Hasegawa (Japanese, 1906–1957) were in Bengston’s words “influences on me.” Bengston developed a radical aesthetic which, combined with his already highly developed skills, taxed the faculty to such an extent that they asked him to leave after only one year.
He quickly became a key player in the Ferus Gallery circle, who rejected the stereotype of the artist as tormented individual, allowing him to create a new and different contextual foundation for his work. Bengston’s passion for professional motorcycling is evident in these iconic early works due to his use of techniques and materials drawn from custom-car and motorcycle culture. Bengston is represented in many important public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, NY, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France. Billy Al Bengston lives in Venice, CA and Hawaii.
http://www.billyalbengston.com/