WPI Oral History: Allan Rubin and Candy Spilner on Tom Wesselmann

Allan Rubin and Candy Spilner were studio assistants to Tom Wesselmann between the late 1970s and early 2000s. Both accomplished artists in their own careers separate from Wesselmann, the two met at Cooper Union in 1969 and have been a couple ever since. Their interview delves into many different aspects of labor in a studio setting: balancing one’s own creative aspirations with the necessities of financing them, fabricating work for another artist, the place of ego within art, and maintaining boundaries between one’s own artistic practice and their employer’s, among others. Highlights include descriptions of daily studio life in the 1980s, detailed accounts of working in the various mediums Wesselmann experimented with over the course of his career, and memories of traveling to accompany and install international Wesselmann exhibitions. KEYWORDS: studio assistants, Great American Nudes, Cooper Union, Janis Gallery, Green Gallery, Standing Still Lifes, Monica Serra, Jeffrey Sturges, printmaking, laser cuts, three-dimensional sculpture, recordkeeping practices, ledger books, Ivan Karp, Jacques Kaplan