Alfred Van Loen Art

William King (1925-2015). Reclining figure, ca. 1965. Cast and welded bronze, 7 x 9.5 x 5 inches. Unsigned. William King, a sculptor in a variety of materials whose human figures traced social attitudes through the last half of the 20th century, often poking sly and poignant fun at human follies and foibles, died on March 4 at his home in East Hampton, N.Y. He was 90. His death was confirmed by Scott Chaskey, who is married to Mr. King's stepdaughter, Megan Chaskey. Mr. King worked in clay, wood, bronze, vinyl, burlap and aluminum. He worked both big and small, from busts and toylike figures to large public art pieces depicting familiar human poses -- a seated, cross-legged man reading; a Western couple (he in a cowboy hat, she in a long dress) holding hands; a tall man reaching down to tug along a recalcitrant little boy; a crowd of robotic-looking men walking in lock step. But for all its variation, what unified his work was a wry observer's arched eyebrow, the pointed humor and witty rue of a fatalist. His figurative sculptures, often with long, spidery legs and an outlandishly skewed ratio of torso to appendages, use gestures and posture to suggest attitude and illustrate his own amusement with the unwieldiness of human physical equipment. His subjects included tennis players and gymnasts, dancers and musicians, and he managed to show appreciation of their physical gifts and comic delight at their contortions and costumery. His suit-wearing businessmen often appeared haughty or pompous; his other men could seem timid or perplexed or awkward. Oddly, or perhaps tellingly, he tended to depict women more reverentially, though in his portrayals of couples the fragility and tender comedy inherent in couplehood settled equally on both partners. Mr. King's work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, among other places, and he had dozens of solo gallery shows in New York and elsewhere. But the comic element of his work probably caused his reputation to suffer. Reviews of his exhibitions frequently began with the caveat that even though the work was funny, it was also serious, displaying superior technical skills, imaginative vision and the bolstering weight of a range of influences, from the ancient Etruscans to American folk art to 20th-century artists including Giacometti, Calder. and Elie Nadelman. The critic Hilton Kramer, one of Mr. King's most ardent advocates, wrote in a 1970 essay accompanying a New York gallery exhibit that he was, "among other things, an amusing artist, and nowadays this can, at times, be almost as much a liability as an asset." A "preoccupation with gesture is the focus of King's sculptural imagination," Mr. Kramer wrote. "Everything that one admires in his work - the virtuoso carving, the deft handling of a wide variety of materials, the shrewd observation and resourceful invention - all this is secondary to the concentration on gesture. The physical stance of the human animal as it negotiates the social arena, the unconscious gait that the body assumes in making its way in the social medium, the emotion traced by the course of a limb, a torso, a head, the features of a face, a coiffure or a costume - from a keen observation of these materials King has garnered a large stock of sculptural images notable for their wit, empathy, simplicity and psychological precision." William Dickey King...

Expressionist bronze sculpture using a direct paper model technique, this work presents a group of female figures beginning to fly. Óscar Aldonza creates each figure from crushed and...

Expressionist bronze sculpture in lost wax casting exploring contained emotion and inner tension. Containing the Rage is a unique figurative work by Galician sculptor Óscar Aldonza, ...

This is a model of the large Picasso sculpture in Chicago it is a vintage piece. it is marked 1967 and was made for the Chicago Public Building Commission (it is also marked Handigu...

Vintage poster realized in 1976 in occasion of the exhibition of the Artist at Galleria Rondanini, Rome. Very good condition.

ITZHAK SANKOWSKY "MODERNIST FACE" WOOD, SIGNED ROMANIAN-AMERICAN, C.1940 24.5 INCHES Itzhak Sankowsky was born in 1908 in Romania. He lived and was active in Philadelphia, Penn...

Gestural watercolor of a colorful seated nude figure by California artist Doris Ann Warner (American, 1925-2010). Signed and dated "Doris Warner, 5/71" on ...

"Motherhood" Watercolor painting 14.5" x 11" inch (1991) by Shaker El Maadawy signed dated Shaker El Maadawy graduated from the Faculty of Fi...

"Reclining Woman with Fish" Watercolor painting 11 x 14.5in by Shaker El Maadawy signed dated Shaker El Maadawy graduated from the Faculty of F...

"Sleeping Figures" Watercolor Abstract Painting 10" x 14"in by Shaker El Maadawy signed dated Shaker El Maadawy graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in painting in 1967 in...

Lithograph in colors on paper. Hand signed lower right by Douglas Hofmann. From the edition of 300. Hand numbered lower left. Artwork is in excellent condition. Certificate of ...

"Abstract Composition II" Watercolor painting 10" x 14" in by Shaker El Maadawy signed dated Shaker El Maadawy graduated from the Faculty of ...