Tag: sculpture

Adolf von Hildebrand

Adolf von Hildebrand, “Stehender Junger Mann ( Standing Young Man ), 1881-1884. Marble, National Gallery, Berlin

Adolf von Hildebrand was a German sculptor, working in the Neo-classical tradition. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Nuremberg and at the Murnich Academy. Hildebrand designed the architectual setting for Hans von Marees’ murals in the library of the German marine Zoological Institute at Naples, Italy. He also executed a monumental fountain, the Witelisbacher Brunnen, In Berlin.

Centaur and Lapith

Centaur and Lapith, Metope South XXVII, Acropolis of Athens, Greece

The metopes of the Parthenon are the surviving set of what were originally 92 square carved plaques of Pentelic marble originally located above the columns of the Parthenon peristyle on the Acropolis of Athens. If they were made by several artists, the master builder was certainly Phidias. They were carved between 447 or 446 BC. or at the latest 438 BC, with 442 BC as the probable date of completion. Most of them are very damaged. Typically, they represent two characters per metope either in action or repose.

Ron English

Ron English, “Temper Tot”, 2017, White Limoges Porcelain

Revisiting his “Temper Tot” figure again in May of 2017, Ron English has partnered with K.Olin Tribu once more to issue an edition of the “Temper Tot” form in porcelain, this new version featuring black decoration on the character’s torn pants. Standing roughly 7-inches tall, 4-inches wide, and 2½-inches deep, this new version of English’s terrifically strong and terrifyingly immature “Temper Tot” was limited to an edition of 50 pieces, each completely finished and reworked by hand to ensure the finest quality, The porcelain was kept free of enamel to ensure that all the details of its musculature are defined and prominent.

As for the intent behind the “Temper Tot” character, it embodies the “combustible amalgamation of unbridled id and unbounded brawn”, as the solicitation text for the original vinyl sculpture stated, and “all misdirected anger and prideful immaturity” as well as being “more self-possessed than self-aware, both jealous of and threatened by the image of himself he presents to the world”.

Jason Van Duyn

Jason Van Duyn, Van Duyn Woodwork: Wooden Cremation Urn

Van Duyn Woodwork in Edenton, North Carolina,  has been crafting wooden vessels, unrs, bowls and sculptures since 1949. The  cremation urns are handmade, turned primarily of various southern domestic hardwoods.  These hardwoods are sourced typically at the end of their life cycle; often the tree has died from disease, advanced age, storm damage, and pests. In many cases various interesting textures, tones, and patterns have developed as a result of those conditions. Each urn is sealed with a hand-threaded finial and is finished with Danish oil.

Their site is https://vanduynwoodwork.com

Source: browndresswithwhitedots

Adolph Carl Johannes Brütt

Adolph Carl Johannes Brütt, “Schwertmann (Swordsman)”, 1912, Bronze, circa 300 cm, Rathausmarkt, Kiel, Germany

Born the coastal North Sea town of Husum in May of 1855, Adolph Carl Johannes Brütt was a German sculptor and the founder of the Weimar Sculpture School and its bronze foundry. Originally trained as a stonemason in the city of Kiel, he worked on several projects, including the Linderhof Palace, the smallest of three palaces built by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. A stipend from the Sparkasse Kiel enabled Brütt to study at the Prussian Academy of Art in Berlin. After graduating in 1878, he became a student of German sculptor Leopold Rau and worked in the studio of Karl Begas the Younger.

Brütt married in 1883 and opened his own studio. In 1893, he broke away from the mainstream Munich Artists’ Association and joined the newly formed Munich Secession, a cooperative to promote and defend their art against official paternalism and conservative policies. Brütt and his close friend Felix Koenigs, a banker and art collector, promoted the Secession through exhibitions at the National Gallery, shows which included works by sculptor Auguste Rodin and the French Impressionists. 

In 1900, Adolph Carl Brütt traveled with his close friends Koenigs and printmaker Max Klinger to the Paris Exposition Universelle where he entered his bronze “Sword Dancer”. This female nude wielding two swords won a gold medal and secured Brütt’s international reputation. Unfortunately, Felix Koenigs became ill at the exposition and died in Paris. Brütt later helped convey Koenigs’s estate to the National Gallery where it is now housed in the “Foundation of Modernism” collection.

Brütt became a Professor at the Prussian Academy and also taught at Berlin’s private Fehr Academy which, devoted to the ideals of the Munich Secession, was founded by Danish painter and sculptor Conrad Fehr in 1892. Other artists who taught at Fehr Academy included German landscape painter and designer Walter Leistikow and copper artist Gustav Ellers. In 1905, Brütt was appointed a Professor at the Weimar Grand Ducal Saxon School of Art where he created its division for sculpture and bronze casting.Working with his students, he created the marble reliefs which decorate the lobby of the new Weimar Court Theater. 

Adolph Carl Brütt returned to Berlin in 1910 when German sculptor Gottlieb Elster, a studio co-worker, succeeded him at the Weimar Art School. For the 1916 Summer Olympics in Germany, his “Sword Dancer” was moved from its location in Kiel to Berlin. In 1928, Brütt was awarded with a honorary citizenship to the German spa town of Bad Berka, the second biggest city in the Weimarer Land district. Adolph Carl Johannes Brütt passed away in Bad Berka in November of 1939. His sculpture school became part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1996. 

Among Adolph Brütt’s bronze and stone sculptures are the 1887 “Der Fischer (The Fisherman)”, a bonze sculpture in front of Berlin’s Old National Gallery; the 206 cm bronze “Schwerttänzerin (Sword Dancer)” in Kiel; the 1902  granite fountain “Asmussen-Woldsen-Brunnen” in the Husum Marketplace; the 1907 “Nacht (Night)”, an openly erotic marble statute at the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Art in Weimar; the 1909 marble statue of a seated Theodor Mommsen at the Court of Honor in Humboldt University; and the 1912 bronze “Schwertmann (Swordsman)” at the Rathausmarkt in Kiel.

Reblogged with thanks to https://hatecolours.tumblr.com

Second Insert Image: Adolph Carl Johannes Brütt, “Schwertmann (Swordsman)”, 1912, Bronze, circa 300 cm, Rathausmarkt, Kiel, Germany

Bottom Insert Image: Louis Held, “Adolph Brütt in Front of His Marble Theodor Mommsen”, circa 1903

Fabio Novembre

Fabio Novembre, The S.O.S. Chair, 2003, Fiberglass, Polyurethane

Fabio Novembre was born in Milan in 1966. An architect since 1992, he became famous through a large series of design projects for restaurants, nightclubs and shops in Italy and abroad, as well as through his unique pieces of Italian furniture designed for Cappellini, Driade and Flaminia.

Novembre proposes works that highlight curvaceous forms and elegant and innovative lines. He often emphasizes sex within his creations. He stands on the boarders of provocation and poetry, contemporary art and design with his pieces.

The S.O.S. line is a joinable system of armchairs and chaise longue realized in a cubic form with a structure in lacquered matt black fiberglass. The sitting area is covered with a bielastic stitch spread in polyurethane and PVC, in a golden color.

Bronze Censer

Ming Dynasty Bronze Censer, Artist Unknown, 1368-1644 AD, Bronze, Hardwood, Jade, Private Collection

This Chinese Ming Dynasty censer has a bronze globular mask decorated body with twin handles. It is supported by a tripod of mask bronze legs resting on a hardwood stand. the cover is hardwood with central jade decoration. The height of the censer is 23 centimeters.

Gonkar Gyatso

Gonkar Gyatso, “Ambivalent Resolution”, 2013, Stickers, Paper Collage, Pencil, Marker, Polyurethane Finish on Resin Sculpture, 32 Inches in Height

One of the most important contemporary artists from Tibet working today, Gonkar Gyatso is renowned for his lyrical and ironic pop montaging in sculpture, printmaking, collage and painting. Executed in 2013, “Ambivalent Resolution” is an example of Gyatso’s pioneering modernism, negotiating the juxtaposition of traditional Buddhist imagery and poignant symbols of pop culture.

Gonkar Gyatso has appropriated the iconic Buddha figure as the seminal image of his work. “Ambivalent Resolution” features a seated Buddha figure, whose elegant limbs follow traditional 14th century Buddhist iconometrical standards of proportion. The sculpture is digitally scanned, digitally manipulated and then turned into a mould from which the resin sculpture is cast.

Rather than the familiar, erect posture of meditation associated with imagery of the Buddha, Gyatso’s figure sits slouched, headless. The surface of the sculpture is covered in the artist’s trademark stickers—a mixture of American, European, Tibetan and Chinese decals featuring images of religious leaders, newspaper headlines, manga characters and superheroes, corporate logos and excerpts from Tibetan texts, all engulfed in cartoon flames.

Born in Lhasa in 1961, Gonkar Gyatso trained in traditional brush painting at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing from 1980 to 1984 as well as traditional Tibetanthangka painting in Dharamsala. He later received his MA in Postmodern Art at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London. In 2003, Gonkar Gyatso founded the Sweet Tea House in London, dedicated to promoting contemporary Tibetan art and bringing together artists from inside Tibet and from abroad.

Harriet Horton

Harriet Horton: Sleep Subjects

Repulsed by the fusty impala torsos procured by macho trophy-hunting and goths shrinking squirrel heads to wear on velvet necklaces alike, taxidermist Harriet Horton has gone on her own way. Strictly ethical about procuring already deceased animals, she takes regular trips to her parental home in near-rural Stratford-Upon-Avon and makes use of a deep-freezer in her east London home.

Horton’s approach to taxidermy has always set out to explore animals in a foreign environment from their original habitat. The animals are stuffed, dyed then positioned on marble and concrete plinths, lit by luminescent halos of neon. The site-specific installations are then soundtracked with eerie industrial-classical music. Horton’s 2015 “Sleep Subjects” exhibition, shown in a crypt in Euston, was very successful.

“I was playing around with different aesthetics and thought of incorporating neon. When I used it, I realised its warm temperature and how relaxing it feels. It changes both your mood and that of the piece, and it makes the taxidermy less about death. I really don’t like the gothic side of taxidermy, it’s not for me. So instead I’ll place a magpie under simple white neon arc and the wings are down but the body’s curved perpendicular to the neon. It’s surreal but unless you know a lot about ornithology it wouldn’t look very weird; it’s just a subtle change to its posture.”- harriet Horton

Commodus Hercules

Michael Beckschebe, “Commodus Hercules”, Date Unknown, Silver Gelatin Print

This marble bust is titled “Commodus Hercules”, a marble portrait sculpture created sometime in 180-193 AD, more probably in 192 AD.   The bust is one of the most famous masterpieces of Roman portraiture and depicts Emperor Commodus in the guise of Hercules. Commodus has been given the attributes of Hercules:  the emblematic lion’s skin,, the club in this right hand, and the golden apples of Hesperides in his left hand.

The incredibly well-preserved bust is placed on a complex allegorical composition. Two kneeling Amazons besiege a globe decorated with the signs of the zodiac and hold aloft a cornucopia, which is entwined with a Peltaion, the Amazons’ characteristic shield.

The celebratory intent that, through a wealth of symbols, imposes the divine cult of the Emperor, is further underlined by the two marine Tritons flanking the central figure to express his deification. The group was recovered in an underground room of the Horti Lamiani complex, where it had probably been hidden.

Reblogged with thanks to http://mytro.tumblr.com

Added thanks to http://ganymedesrocks.tumblr.com for providing the information.

Photo taken in 2008 by Michael Beckschebe

Michael Sansky

Michael Sansky, “Study for Giants and Dwarves VI”, 1998-2000, Collage, Oil and Plastic Objects on Carved Wood, Private Collection

Writing about the exhibition “Land Mine” at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, art curator Jessica Hough wrote:

“In the kinetic sculpture from the series Giants and Dwarfs, Zansky manipulates scale using a series of large lenses positioned around a rotating carved wooden object. The object, which has been carved from plywood, looks like driftwood, a desiccated animal carcass, or a meteor – morph the viewer’s perspective so that the object continues to shape-shift. It is large and small; organic and celestial. Zansky’s sculpture, along with all of the work in “Land Mine”, reminds us that truth must be mined and that human history easily eludes us.”

Frog Effigy Pendant

Veraguas-Gran Chiriquí, Frog Effigy Pendant, 700-1520 AD, Gold, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, Maryland

Sometime after 500 CE, gold became the preferred material for fashioning personal adornments, supplanting jadeite and other green stones from which artists had made impressive pendants and necklaces for centuries. The relatively sudden appearance of gold and the specialized knowledge needed to work it imply the introduction of metallurgy from outside the region.

All evidence points to northwestern Colombia as the point of origin of the metal arts, a region filled with other archaeological and art historical lines of evidence indicating a long-standing history of contacts between the two regions. Gold pendants were cast in a variety of forms, from relatively naturalistic portrayals of animals to composite creatures combining human and zoomorphic features. The frog may be a totem, symbolic of transformational abilities or special connections to the supernatural.