Robert D. Erickson

Electric Light Socket, 1944

Oil on canvas

16 x 18 inches (framed 17 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches)

Signed and dated on stretcher

#18891

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Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Erickson moved to Chicago in 1943 to study at the newly established Institute of Design (ID). Erickson’s earnest devotion to experimentation at the ID earned him Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s admiration and friendship. Moholy-Nagy, who encouraged Erickson’s work in painting, included examples of his work in his posthumously published 1947 book Vision in Motion. Erickson was considered a ‘Total Designer’ – a Bauhaus term for the well-rounded artist who incorporated Bauhaus principles in his life to an extraordinary degree.

Erickson’s work is held in private collections worldwide as well as in the permanent collections of the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin, The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago.