Spirit In Wood: Peter Boiger

This carreer-spanning exhibition in the Museum’s Main Gallery provides an impressive overview of the internationally acclaimed sculptor’s work, with particular emphasis on original masterpieces in wood.

Boiger’s sculpture is famed for its organic abstractions and masterly execution. During his half-century carreer the sculptor has worked in a wide spectrum of materials, but his emotional power has always been most visible in his wooden sculptures, carved from a variety of woods. The Bolinas exhibition – for the first time – brings together a large collection of these unique and powerful pieces.

Boiger’s general form language reaches from gently rounded curves – evocative of the works of Brancusi and Moore – to lanky figurative abstractions of rising and falling humans – closer perhaps to the work of Minne and Giacometti – while Barlach’s influence is apparent in all of the wooden carvings. Yet all of Boiger’s works bear a strong mark of his individual introspection and expression.

Born and raised in the forested mountains of Southern Germany where one can find the origins of his remarkable commitment to craft and especially his appreciation of wood, Boiger spent most of his artistic carreer in the US and in Israel. His formative years in Berkeley were followed by many fertile years in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem where he also joined in the sculptural work on Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial. Shortly after his eventual return to California, the sculptor moved to Point Reyes where he built his own home and studio. Boiger’s work has been exhibited across the US, in Europe and in Israel. His sculptures can now be found in prominent private, corporate and museum collections on all three continents.