1970 - 1979
TOM (LEFT), TONY, & FRIENDS, C. 1971
VAN SANT AND COLLEAGUES INSTALL CELEBRATION OF LIFE, 1972
VAN SANR INTERVIEW WITH A PACIFIC MUTUAL PUBLICATION, C. 1972
VAN SANT’S SHOW AT THE STEDELIJK MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM, C. 1977
VAN SANT, HENRY MOORE, & ROLAND PENROSE, C. 1976
“VIRGINIA EATON, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR OF THE WIGNALL MUSEUM GALLERY AT CHAFFEY COLLEGE, CONTEMPLATES THE WOODEN BIRD FORMS CREATED BY ARTIST TOM VAN SANT.” [11]
TOM VAN SANT, DRAWING OF RICHARD FEYNMAN, C. 1979
RICHARD FEYNMAN: DRAWING OF TOM VAN SANT, C. 1979
1970: TVS has a solo exhibition at Gail Woodward Galleries, Westwood, CA.
1970: TVS makes Founder I, Founder II for the Arizona First National Bank, Globe, AZ. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
1970: TVS makes bronze sundial Celestial Way for a Whittier CA memorial park. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
1971: TVS is Art Consultant for the Theo Davies Pacific Center, Honolulu, Hawaii. Assisted by Tony Sheets, he makes concrete murals Nineteenth Century Industries of Hawaii
1971: TVS makes Hawaiian Visions for the Ki Surf Resort, Kona, Hawaii. Rather that pouring or casting the panels, Van Sant sculpted them by hand. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
OCTOBER 22, 1971: TVS incorporates as “Tom Van Sant, Inc” to “engage in, operate, conduct, and direct a business for the acquisition, production, and sale on a wholesale and retail basis of murals, paintings, sculptures, and related works of art, decorative concepts, and designs. The directors are Van Sant, his brother Merritt, and John A. Sheets (Tony). [1]
OCTOBER 30, 1971: At their 2nd meeting, the directors of Tom Van Sant, Inc., resolve to enter contracts for “Yacht Harbor Towers, Irvine Company, LA Civic Center, Honolulu Airport.” Plus, salaries are set for TVS ($5000 pct) and Sheets ($1000 pct), with “profit sharing in the form of bonuses paid to John Sheets at the discretion of the President...to be “determined promptly on completion of each job.” [2]
AUGUST 16, 1972: At their third meeting, the directors of Tom Van Sant, Inc., resolve to enter contracts for future projects: “Pacific Mutual Life Insurance co., Crocker National Bank,…Community Redevelopment Agency, Los Angeles.” [3]
1972: TVS makes terrazzo sculpture group Sail Forms in Hawaii. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
1972: TVS paints Shells and Gods, Hawaii. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
1972: TVS is Civic Art Planner for Inglewood Civic Center. Assisted by Tony Sheets, he makes The Written Word, negotiates sculptural works by Jack Zajac and Tony De Lap , and assembles a print collection.
1972: TVS makes fountain sculpture Family Group, Newport Beach, CA. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
1972: TVS makes Body of Knowledge, for the LA County Public Library, Lakewood, CA. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
1972: TVS makes Celebration of Life for Pereira’s Pacific Mutual building, Newport Beach, CA. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
1972: TVS makes History of Flight in Taiwan, where he is introduced to ancient kite-making. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
1972: TVS makes Bird Forms using parts of the ill-fated B-70 aircraft for Pereira’s Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
DECEMBER 20, 1972: At their 4th meeting, the directors of Tom Van Sant, Inc. resolve to “adopt a Thrift and Retirement Plan for… eligible employees.” [4]
1972 – 1974: As Civic Art Planner for LA Civic Center, “the nation’s first municipally owned and operated office and shopping complex.” [5] TVS makes Open Hand and Pedestrian Bridge. Joseph Young, Millard Sheets, Hans Scharff, and Jan Peter Stern also make works.
1973: TVS makes Luau for Honolulu International Airport, Hawaii. Assisted by Tony Sheets.
DECEMBER 31, 1973: At its 5th meeting, Tom Van Sant, Inc. “acknowledges the retirement of John A. Sheets as an employee of the company as of May 1973...Mr. Sheets will remain an officer and member of the Board of Directors.” [6]
“...he brought to life the most dramatic forms in kite history. They have no forerunners and, quite possibly, may have no descendants capable of outshining them.“ [7]
1974 – 1977: 18-months after receiving instruction in kite construction using bamboo and paper, TVS buys up the stock of fiberglass “blanks” – the rod part of a fishing rod – from a defunct sporting goods store. Replacing bamboo with the tensile blanks, he pairs them with ripstop nylon to make large, strong, lightweight kites. His innovations make him the acknowledged father of modern kite-making.
For approximately 3-years, TVS designs and constructs multiple large-scale Kites, which he demonstrates and exhibits into the 21st century, including in US, UK, Holland, Hawaii, France, Ireland, Sweden, and Australia.
“I got tired of making judgments about art. The question with a kite is, will the damn thing fly?” [8]
1974: Jacqueline Anhalt Gallery, LA, CA, mounts a solo exhibition of TVS’s artwork.
1975: TVS makes Vietnam Memorial: “A symbol of war’s aftermath, twisted metal overgrown by jungle, birds nest among the ruins unaware of previous violence. Life goes on.” [9]
1975 – 1976: TVS works on an Art & Environment Plan for the Farahzad Center, Tehran, Iran.
NOTE: After the 1973 Arab Israeli War and embargo on oil sales to the US, the Shah of Iran accelerated the nation’s pursuit of modernization which brought architects and designers from the West. After the 1978 revolution deposed the Shah, however, projects crashed to a halt. The Farahzad Center does not appear to exist.
JULY 13 – AUGUST 23, 1976: London’s Institute of Contemporary Art presents Kites: The Incredible Flying Sculpture of Tom van Sant.
“I first met him in 1976 in the middle of the road outside Buckingham Palace where he was manually pulling a huge cart with a giant packing crate on it, full of kites and heading toward the gallery which I was managing at that time. What an extraordinary character, remarkable man, and great artist!” [10]
SUMMER 1976: Van Sant visits legendary sculptor Henry Moore at his Hertfordshire studio, with artist, poet, historian, and ICA co-founder, Roland Penrose.
1976: TVS makes concrete mural Pour, Honolulu, HI.
1976: TVS makes Flight of Fancy, Manila, Philippines.
SEPTEMBER 17-23, 1976: TVS has a one-person exhibition focused on his kites at Festival d’Automne a Paris, Foundation Salomon de Rothschild, Paris, France.
1976: Flight Form: The Improbable Sculpture of Tom Van Sant, a short film made by TVS and award-winning filmmaker Ed Spiegal, is screened every day for a week at LA’s Nuart Theater.
1976: TVS makes murals Tapas and Lava Falling to the Sea, Maui, Hawaii.
FEBRUARY 1977: TVS’s solo exhibition Tom Van Sant–Sky Sculpture opens at Chaffey College’s Wignall Museum and Gallery showing “fifty pieces of the artist’s work, including flight-related sculptures and kites.” [12]
1976: TVS has a solo, kite-focused exhibition at Myer Galleries, Melbourne, Australia.
1977: TVS’s sol exhibition travels to Myer Galleries, Sydney, Australia, where he flies Jacob’s Ladderat Sydney Harbor.
1977: TVS’s solo exhibition travels to Honolulu City Hall, Honolulu, HI.
1977: TVS takes his solo exhibition to the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. The catalog is designed by design legends Wim Crouwel & Daphne van Peski.
1977: TVS’s solo exhibition travels to the Lakehal Museum, Leiden, Holland.
1977: TVS’s solo exhibition travels to the Schiedam Museum, Rotterdam, Holland.
1977: TVS’s solo exhibition travels to Butler Castle Museum, Kilkenny, Ireland.
1979: TVS meets theoretical physicist Richard Feynman while flying a kite on a beach in Mexico. The two quickly become close friends and, until Feynman’s death in 1988, met regularly.
“We met nearly every Monday evening for the drawing class at my studio until his final illness ten years later. Sometimes he would come early for dinner, and nearly always he would stay afterwards for enjoyment of the outside hot tub and the spirited conversations on all subjects.” [13]
1979: Van Sant makes Authors of the Sea, Newport Beach, CA.
1979: LA’s bicentennial commission asks TVS to propose a public work for the 200th anniversary of the founding of the city of LA (September 1981). After some initial struggles, Van Sant conceived the Birthday Cake Proposal, which would produce a satellite image of Southern California with Los Angeles“lighted up like a giant birthday cake.” [14]
Although Van Sant provided proof of concept with Reflections From Earth, the project was never fully realized because, after August 1980, “donors for the Bicentennial Celebration evaporated in favor of the ’84 Olympics.” [15]
Nonetheless, Birthday Cake Proposal represented Van Sant’s first foray into working with satellites, which would transform his creative practice for the next twenty years.