Lucas Samaras
Λουκάς Σαμαράς
Self-portrait,Photo-Transformation, Polaroid SX-70 print, 1973,Getty Museum
Born	(1936-09-14)September 14, 1936 Kastoria,Greece
Died	March 7, 2024(2024-03-07) (aged 87) New York City, New York, U.S.
Education	Rutgers University
Known for	Photography,sculpture,printmaking

Lucas Samaras (Greek:Λουκάς Σαμαράς; September 14, 1936 – March 7, 2024) was a Greek-born American photographer, sculptor, and painter.^[1]

Samaras was born inKastoria, Greece on September 14, 1936.^[2] He studied atRutgers University and befriendedAllan Kaprow. Samaras participated as actor in Kaprow'sHappenings while studying acting withStella Adler.^[3] Samaras posed forGeorge Segal's plaster sculptures.^[4]Claes Oldenburg, in whoseHappenings he also participated, later referred to Samaras as one of the "Fluxus at Rutgers University" which also included Kaprow, Segal,George Brecht,Robert Whitman,Robert Watts,Geoffrey Hendricks, andRoy Lichtenstein.^{[citation needed]}

Eventually Samaras found success as a visual artist and moved out of his parents' home after his 1961 exhibit “The Art of Assemblage” was shown in theMuseum of Modern Art. Samaras stayed in New York and his dismantled bedroom was reinstalled in theGreen Gallery. Samaras ever only hung his own art and that ofChuck Close in his New York apartment.^[5]

Samaras constructed room environments that contained elements from his own personal history.^[6]

His "Auto-Interviews" were a series of text works that were "self-investigatory" interviews.^[7] The primary subject of his photographic work is his own self-image, generally distorted and mutilated. He worked withmulti-mediacollages, and by manipulating the wet dyes inPolaroid photographic film to create what he calls "Photo-Transformations". Of the diverse nature and output of his body of workNew York Times arts journalistGrace Glueck said in 1996 that "There appears to be not one Lucas Samaras, but several artists of that name”.^[8]

Samaras was represented byPace Gallery from 1965.^[9] He represented Greece at the53rd Venice Biennale in 2009 with the multi-installation "PARAXENA" in the Greek Pavilion in theGiardini.^[10] Samaras' sculptureStiff Box 12 has been outside theUniversity of Michigan Museum of Art since 1997.^[11] He was the subject of several portraits byChuck Close, in media including painting,daguerreotype, andtapestry.^[12]

Samaras died of complications from a fall in New York City on March 7, 2024, at the age of 87.^[13]

• Kristine Stiles and Peter Selz, editors.Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists' Writings. University of California Press, 1996.
• Jo Applin, '"Materialized Secrets": Samaras, Hesse and the Small Scale Box',Object, no. 4, 2002

• Goysdotter, Moa (2013).Impure Vision: American Staged Art Photography of the 1970s. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.ISBN 9789187351006.

• Samaras at Pace Gallery
• Getty Museum bio of Lucas Samaras
• Lucas Samaras atIMDb
• Lucas Samaras discography atDiscogs
• Lucas Samaras: Offerings from a Restless Soul 2014 exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Dreams in Dust: The Pastels of Lucas Samaras 2016 exhibition of Samaras’s pastels at theMorgan Library & Museum.  The pastels were a gift of Samaras and his dealerArne Glimcher.

• 1936 births
• 2024 deaths
• Postmodern artists
• 20th-century American painters
• American male painters
• 21st-century American painters
• American photographers
• People from Kastoria
• Rutgers University alumni
• Greek emigrants to the United States
• Greek contemporary artists
• 20th-century American printmakers
• 20th-century American sculptors
• 20th-century American male artists
• 21st-century American sculptors
• 20th-century Greek sculptors
• 21st-century Greek sculptors
• 20th-century Greek painters
• 21st-century Greek painters

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