Andre, Carl

Related Category: American Art: Biographies

(än´drā), 1935–, American sculptor, b. Quincy, Mass. A former student of Patrick Morgan and Frank Stella, Andre produces sculptures of elemental, classic form. His works reflect the quarries, shipyards, and islands of his birthplace and his years spent as a freight-train brakeman. One of the founders of the minimalist sculpture movement, he is famous for his floor pieces, including Lever (1966), in which fire bricks were arranged to extend laterally 400 feet (122 m) from a gallery wall. In 1988, he was tried and acquitted of pushing his wife, land art sculptor Ana Mendiata, to her death from the window of their 34th-floor apartment.