Joseph Havel

Joseph Havel is an American postmodernist sculptor whose artistic practice is characterized by the exploration of the everyday. 

Biography of Joseph Havel

Joseph Havel was born in  Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1954. He earned a BFA in 1976 from the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and an MFA in 1979 from Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

He was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowship in 1987 and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Artist's Fellowship in 1995. More recently, Havel was honored as a 2019 Dallas Art Fair Artist Honoree and awarded the 2019 Brown Foundation Artist Residency at the Dora Maar House in Menerbes, France.

Throughout his illustrious career, the artist has held various teaching positions. From 1979 to 1991, he was a Professor at Austin College in Sherman, Texas. He also served as Associate Director (1991-1993) and Director (1993-2022) of the Glassell School of Art in Houston, Texas.

His solo exhibitions include "451" at Hiram Butler Gallery in Houston (2023), "Parrot Architecture" at Dallas Contemporary in Dallas (2022), "Flight Paths and Floorplans" at Talley Dunn Gallery in Dallas (2022), "Drawings" at Anthony Meier Fine Art (online) in San Francisco (2021), "Joss" at Asia Society in Houston (2020), and many more.

Additionally, Joseph Havel's works have been featured in numerous group shows held at galleries and museums worldwide, including Talley Dunn Gallery in Dallas, Arthur Roger Gallery in New Orleans, Edwin Edlin Gallery in New York, Galerie Gabrielle Maubrie in Paris, Galleri Jonas Kleerup in Stockholm, Yvon Lambert in Paris, among other esteemed venues.

Currently, the artist lives and works in Houston, Texas.

Joseph Havel's Art Style

Havel's sculptural practice explores objects from domestic life. Shirts, books, bedsheets, and curtains are transformed into bronze and polyurethane resin, adopting neoclassical shapes that hint at human forms and social histories of use, yet leave interpretation open to the viewer.

His works embody visual poetry, deriving significance from their form, materiality, and presence. In his series of shirt-label paintings, he explores the boundary between objecthood and the illusory space of the canvas, blending minimalism and geometric abstraction with a critical post-modern perspective. Across his diverse oeuvre, Havel's unified aesthetic of post-minimalism exudes a quiet intensity, inviting ongoing exploration of fundamental inquiries.