Born in Jacksonville, FL Sheldon Kirby grew up in the Los Angeles area. He earned his BA at Pomona College and an MFA at the Claremont Graduate School in 1954. Since the mid-1950s Kirby produced abstract expressionist work and taught art at a variety of San Diego institutions.
Following time in Peru on a U.S. State Department Fellowship, Kirby began teaching in the San Diego City Schools (1955) followed by time at the Art Center La Jolla – where he worked until the school closed in 1964 – following which the artist taught at California Western University, and Southwestern College (1967-1969) as well as his own school
According to ObjectsUSA.com, “Donald Brewer arranged in 1968 for a major retrospective of Kirby’s work at the La Jolla Museum (the former Art Center) that prominently featured his constructages as well as painting and sculpture, saying: “Of any San Diego painter, (Kirby) seems to know exactly what he wants to achieve and how to get there. He has at his command a tremendous ability and technical capacity.” In San Diego Magazine, John Baldessari is further quoted as saying that: “Sheldon Kirby emanates a tough-minded certainty about painting and consequently about life in general. His outlook seems to be this: no compromise. Perhaps this manner is the force that gives his paintings such an authoritative and knowledgeable look. I’m certain that this inner-directed attitude has good effect. I think it’s contagious.”
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