Commissions

b:  Kansas City, MO, 1938    d:  Washington, DC, 2011

1957 - 1961 BFA in sculpture; University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 
1962 - 1965 U.S. Navy Reserve, Lieutenant jg

Awards and Honors

1968 - 1974  Washington Gallery of Modern Art, and  co-director of the gallery artist workshop program;  Artist Fellowship 
 
1968  Member, Washington, DC Chapter. 
Experiments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), founded by engineers Billy Klüver and Fred Waldhauer and artists Robert Rauschenberg and Robert Whitman in 1966. A not-for-profit service organization whose goal was to promote collaborations between artists, engineers and scientists.

1969  Granted patent for laser beam reflective system; pioneered laser art in the 1960s. Granted patent in seven countries for the first 3-D laser piece, first in the field. Created the first outdoor laser art, urban-scale laser art, and scanned laser art with a digital memory. Granted patent for laser [light] beam reflective system: U.S. Patent No. 3,622,228; Canada Patent No. 913037; France Patent No. 70,34627; Great Britain Patent No. 1,297,558; Italy Patent No. 911712; Japan Patent No. 629,284; Germany Patent No.____.
 
1969  Cassandra Foundation, New York, NY; Grant Award 
 
1970  National Endowment for the Arts, Washington, DC; Visual Artist Fellowship 
 
1972   
Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, New York, NY; Artist Fellowship 
 
1973 - 1974  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Center for Advanced Visual Studies, Cambridge, MA, under György Kepes, founder of the
Center for  Advanced Visual Studies at M.I.T.; Research Fellowship
 
1976  Selected for inclusion in Marquis Who’s Who in America (1976 through 2012)

1980 - 1984   
Washington Project for the Arts, WPA, Washington, DC. Board of Directors

1986 - 1988  Coalition of Washington Artists, Washington, DC. Steering Committee Member

1987  Florida Power & Light “Night Beautiful  Award”; “The Illumination Engineering Society Award” for The Miami Line, public artwork, Miami, FL.

1987  DC Arts Center, DCAC, Washington, DC. Founding Board Member

1989  Distinguished Merit Award, Maryland College of Art & Design; “Leadership on Behalf of Artists’ Rights” 
 
1994 - 1997  Artist Equity, National Vice President

1996 - 2012  Selected for inclusion in Marquis Who’s Who in the World

1996 - 1997  Member, International Laser Display Association – ILDA / 1999-2000 Member, International Laser Display Association – ILDA

2003 - 2011  Member, Sons of the American Revolution, Harry S. Truman Chapter, MO. 

Granted patent for laser beam reflective system; pioneered laser art in the 1960s. Granted patent in seven countries for the first 3-D laser piece, first in the field. Created the first out door laser art, urban-scale laser art, and scanned laser art with a digital memory. Granted patent for laser [light] beam reflective system: U.S. Patent No. 3,622,228; Canada Patent No. 913037; France Patent No. 70,34627; Great Britain Patent No. 1,297,558; Italy Patent No. 911712; Japan Patent No. 629,284; Germany Patent No.__.

Commissions

1970  Stern Line, first ever urban-scale laser environment, commissioned by Mr. and Mrs. Philip M. Stern, Washington, DC.

1971  Rite de Passage, urban-scale laser installation, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA; honoring Mrs. Edith Stern.
 
1972   Light is the City at Night, Latter Center, New Orleans, LA.

1973  Sky Bridge Green, urban-scale laser installation, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA. Commissioned and curated by David Katzive.

1973-1976  Canis Major and Atlantis, laser and solar installations, Omni International Complex, Atlanta, GA. Developed natural light plan, which was designed into the architecture.  Atlantis, used sunlight and an arrangement of prisms to throw rainbow-like color on the facade.  On only two days a year, the spring and autumn equinoxes, the precise configuration of hundreds of prisms and sunlight created a portrait of his daughter’s eye, visible on the facade of the building.
 
1974  Spectral Drawings, AFL-CIO Labor Studies Center, Silver Spring, MD.

1974  St. Louis Blues and Greens, urban-scale laser installation, University of Maryland, The Art Gallery, College Park, MD.
 
1975  The Laser and Star Board, Home on the Range, Part VI, St. Petersburg Arts Commission,
St. Petersburg, FL. and the National Endowment for the Arts. Curated by St. Petersburg Arts Commission, Director Glenn Anderson.

1976  
Sun Dog, solar and laser installations. National Endowment for the Arts, for the U.S. Bicentennial Expo Science and Technology, Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, FL. 

1977  
The One Night Stand, urban-scale laser installation, first ever laser with fireworks, Baltimore Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD.

1978  Green Air  –  an environmental collage, urban-scale lasers, Fort Worth Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX.
 
1979  
Still Green, urban-scale laser installation, Disneyland Hotel, Anaheim, CA.

1979  Crystal Rain, Prism solar installation, 200’ x 10’, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA. 

1979  The White Tornado, Atrium, Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, Topeka, KS. Commissioned  by the U.S. General Services Administration Art-in-Architecture Program. An environmental sculpture 60 feet high with a tornado-like element on which white neon “lightning bolts” are placed to form a five-pointed star when viewed from below -  sunlight, prisms, white  neon, white painted aluminum, mirrors and scrim fabric.
*Restoration completed by McKay Lodge Laboratory Fine Art Conservation in 2017.​

1980 The Source, urban-scale laser installation, The National Mall, Washington, DC. The 11th International Sculpture Conference Exhibition

1980  Rainbow Green - My Dream of Rousseau, U.S. Botanic Gardens, Washington, DC. Commissioned by Washington Projects for the Arts and The National Endowment for the Arts.

1982  The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH. Urban-scale laser sculpture. Curated by Director Dr. Louis A. Zona.

1982  The Green Verb, urban-scale laser installation, the  Greater Columbus Arts Council’s annual Arts Festival, The Ohio Foundation on the Arts/Columbus. “The ‘verb’ of the title is the laser; the subjects are space, light and color, and the predicate is the architecture of space. The title also is a compliment to the Ohio State Library personnel who work on Front Street. I like to find a place that gives me two good, clean moves – like a chess game – then work from there.” - Rockne Krebs, The Green Verb, 1982

1983  The Green Hypotenuse, 7-mile-long laser beam from Mt. Wilson to Caltech, Pasadena, CA. In conjunction  with the exhibition, Rockne Krebs: A Retrospective of Drawings, 1965-1982, and the installation sculpture piece, Crystal Oasis for the Winter Solstice, Baxter Art Gallery of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA. Curated by
Jay Belloli.

1983 Transparent Paper Airplanes, Miami International Airport, Concourse E, Miami, FL. Commissioned by Metro-Dade Art in Public Places. Plexiglas airplanes hung from the ceiling, neon, and prisms; the work is spread over three spaces, its color effects changing throughout the year.  

1984  The Green Lady, urban-scale laser installation, Fountain Square, Cincinnati, OH. Commissioned by the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center. Exhibition organized by Director Dennis Barrie. Included traveling exhibition, Rockne Krebs: A Retrospective of Drawings, 1965-1982 and the installation sculpture piece, Crystal Oasis for the Winter Solstice.

1985  The Vine Covered Passarelle, Reisterstown Plaza Metro Station, Baltimore Metro Subway Station, Baltimore, MD. Neon sculpture, exterior piece, fifty-three leaves with vines covering entrance.

1985  
Crystal Willow, glass and metal sculpture with prism-refracting leaves, marks the southern
entrance to the business district, downtown Bethesda, MD.
 
1985  Laser Dance, interactive laser stage sets for the dancers and audience environment,George Washington University, Lisner Auditorium, Washington, DC. 
Collaboration piece with Krebs, choreographer Maida Withers and composer Bob Boilen. 

1986 Sun Flowers (Kite Flight), Veterans Administration Medical Center, Spinal Cord Injury Unit, Memphis, TN. A prismatic environmental sculpture that is by design responsive to daily and annual solar change. 

1986  Madison Art Center, Madison, WI. Urban-scale laser piece, art festival, Madison Festival of the Lakes.
 
1987  The Miami Line, urban-scale neon sculpture, one-quarter mile long neon on both sides of the bridge over the Miami River in downtown Miami, FL.

1987  Neo-Green, urban-scale laser installation, Memorial Art Gallery, and The University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.

1989  Inclined Planes, urban-scale laser installation, Johnstown, PA. Honoring the Johnstown’s 1889 Flood Centennial Commemoration.

1989  Mapplethorpe Projections on the facade of The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, cover of Artforum magazine. Part of the demonstration protesting the museum's cancellation of the Mapplethorpe retrospective, and against censorship in the arts in general.

1989  St. Patrick’s Solar Piece, St. Patrick's Episcopal Church, Washington, DC.

1992  The Majic Wand, urban-scale laser installation, Long Beach, CA. Commissioned by the Arts Council for Long Beach, duration December 1992 through the fall of 1997.

1993  The Red River Bridge, laser, searchlights, fiber optics and neon, bridge over the Red River between Shreveport and Bossier City, LA. Commissioned by the Shreveport Regional Arts Council.

1994  Pegasus Cloud Projection, urban-scale lasers, and computer animated laser cloud projection, Sacramento, CA.

1996   CNN Center, Atlanta, GA. Recreated the 1976 laser sculpture, Canis Major, in what was originally the Omni International Complex and added Good Luck World for the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, GA. Good Luck World, computer animated laser projection on the CNN Center atrium ceiling, 100’ x 150’.

1996   Good Luck World, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, IN. Urban-scale, four laser piece and Good Luck World, computer animated laser projection piece.

2001  Mr. Belloli’s Universe, assemblage of laser light and night, urban-scale laser installation for The Universe: Contemporary Art and the Cosmos exhibition, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA.  

2005  Day Star, The Children’s Inn at the National Institute of Health, NIH, Bethesda, MD. A sun piece with 180 prisms, neon, large Plexiglas mobile with lily pads, clouds and four-leaf clovers, and a wall painting.

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Solo Exhibitions