De Wain Valentine, Sculptor Who Made Plastic Into an Art Form, Dies at 86

De Wain Valentine, a sculptor affiliated with the Light and Space movement commonly considered to be among the first artists to enlist plastic as an artistic material, has died. A representative for Valentine’s gallery, Almine Rech, said on Sunday that he died of an illness.
Valentine was a member of a group of Southern Californian artists who, during the ’60s, enlisted industrial materials toward transcendent, minimal means. Some of the sculptors were labeled Finish Fetish artists f