Pat O’Neill | Hammer Museum

Best known for his experimental films, Pat O’Neill has been making sculpture since the 1960s. His work in both disciplines reveals the artist’s commitment to new materials and technologies, an interest informed by O’Neill’s study of industrial design at UCLA before a fine art department was established at the school. Made using materials such as fiberglass, plexiglass, and car paint, his amorphic sculptural forms are objects born of science fiction and the very real innovations of the aerospace industry that flourished in Southern California during the second half of the twentieth century. In this, O’Neill’s interests align with those of his generational cohort, especially the so-called California Light and Space artists, including Fred Eversley, Robert Irwin, John McCracken, Helen Pashgian, and DeWain Valentine.

Black-and-white image of a light-colored car with its front crashed into the ground in front of a palm tree

Pat O’Neill, Los Angeles, from the series Cars and Other Problems, ca. 1960s

Pat O’Neill was born in 1939 in Los Angeles. Long known as a pioneer in experimental film and visual effects, O’Neill has also produced a distinctive body of sculpture using postwar industrial materials such as fiberglass, plexiglass, resin, and aluminum. Selected solo exhibitions include Curatorial Exhibitions at The Reef, Los Angeles (2025); Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York (2021, 2015); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2019); Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles (2018); Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (2016); Monitor, Rome (2016); VeneKlasen /Werner, Berlin (2016); Cherry and Martin, Los Angeles (2015, 2013); Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Los Angeles (2011); and the Santa Monica Museum of Art, CA (2004). Selected group exhibitions include Huntington Beach Art Center, CA (2024); Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles (2021); Martos Gallery, New York (2019); Villa Arson, Nice, France (2018); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016, 2008, 1991); Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (2015); Les Abattoirs, Musée–Frac Occitanie Toulouse, France (2014); Fellows of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2011); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2010, 2008, 2006); Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2009); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2008); and Tate Liverpool, England (2006). Honors and awards include a Creative Capital Grant (2015); a California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists (2013); First Prize in Film at FLEX Fest, Tampa (2011); a Rockefeller Foundation Grant (1997); the Maya Deren Award for Independent Film and Video, American Film Institute (1993); and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1992). O’Neill earned a BA (1962) and an MA (1964) from the University of California, Los Angeles.