Rockne Krebs Studio, Washington D.C., DC (2026)

A pioneering artist recognized for his monumental sculptural work with light.

04/01/2026

“April Fools” or Dark Art, Rockne Krebs, 1973
(*We only have this black and white photo of the drawing found on the MIT CAVS Special Collections website, so far.)

Rockne was a research fellow, 1973 – 1974, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Cambridge, MA. Research Fellowship under György Kepes, founder of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at M.I.T..

Drawing text -
“April Fools” or Dark Art
The basic idea is to do a piece in a completely dark room. (so, what’s new) The piece would be produced of material particularly responsive to infrared light or of I.R. light itself. Consider doing the piece by simply turning off lights in a gallery of a museum already installed with paintings & sculpture. In this case my piece would be an altered vision of existing work.
(must get a night vision scope & test)
If I did the piece in the room myself, it could be done with a small I.R. Laser. It could also be done with projections from window closed off with I.R. filters places over selected areas. (The I.R. filter idea could work well with the existing gallery installation situation.)

Binocular
Night vision scope (The viewer would see the piece only when he looked through the binoculars.

Rockne Krebs
1 April 1973

Rockne Krebs: Drawing Gallery https://www.rocknekrebs.com/gallery/project-four-rkdrawings

11/26/2025

Happy Thanksgiving! 🧡

Smoke Drawing Series, Rockne Krebs, 1973

11/23/2025

Something light. Happy Sunday.

Untitled, Rockne Krebs, 1973

"In some of these works, the artist put down a primary arrangement of colors using airbrush, sometimes very freely and in others first penciled in geometric shapes. In some works, the color seems to have been added after the smoke layer. A few of the drawings are large scale, and many are quite small. But in every case, Krebs' obsession with meticulous control of what went on the paper is evident, resulting in a remarkably elegant group of works that remain in the mind long after seeing them...

Another with the same designation has chevrons lightly airbrushed as the first layer in tones that include a deep turquoise transitioning to orange and yellow carried out with exquisite softness. The gray smoke moves over this in curls and eddies, tracking the movement of the paper in the artist's hands.

A small piece from 8/73, a 9 7/8" square, is limited to the smoke, as are a few other small ones in the exhibit. Two branches of smoke come from the corners to meet in a flurry of forms in the center. The image[s] is evocative of many things, from microscopic animals to galaxies meeting in deep space. This iconography seems to permeate all the works, alluding to both the microcosm and the macrocosm simultaneously, capturing the chance movements of the medium that mimic nature's simplicity and mystery." Claudia Rousseau, Ph.D., 2016, East City Art

smoke drawings beautifully captured in an
exquisite softness movement nature simplicity and mystery

11/22/2025

“Mists, Rainbows, Sun and Lasers”

“In the 15 years since the late Morris Louis first poured his immaterial colors, Washington has produced innovative artists of international stature, but all — save one— are painters.

The sole, remarkable exception is the sculptor Rockne Krebs.

In the years since Kenneth Noland first painted hard edge circles, the finest art works of this city have been cleanly engineered visual machines.

Krebs alone, of all our artists, has managed to transcend the look of the synthetic. Once he worked with planes of polished plexiglass; today, instead, he collaborates with nature.”

Paul Richard, 1971, Washington Post Art Critic

https://www.rocknekrebs.com

Address

Washington D.C., DC

Website

http://RockneKrebs.com/, http://RockneKrebsArt.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Rockne Krebs Studio posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Rockne Krebs Studio