The American artist David Salle (born 1952) combined the human figure with abstract forms in many of his works, presenting disturbing meditations on our modern existence.

David Salle was born in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1952 and spent much of his youth in Wichita, Kansas, before going to California to study art at the age of 18. He received both his B.F.A. (1973) and M.F.A. (1975) from the California Institute of the Arts while studying under the artist John Baldessari. In 1975, at the age of 22, he moved to New York to embark on a career as a painter. His early years in New York, where he still resided in the early 1990s, were financially difficult ones, so much so that in 1976 he declared bankruptcy. As a result, he was forced to support himself by taking on odd jobs working alternately as a cook, teacher, and even a paste-up artist in...