Alfred Van Loen Abstract Sculptures

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...

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...

Bronze heron by American sculptor Wayne Williams. Signed and dated 1993. Edition 2/2. Mounted on a walnut base. From Finger Lakes Magazine 2001: Art is everywhere in the Finger Lakes. Inspired by the region’s diverse scenery and lifestyles, artists pursue their creativity outdoors, in studios and in workshops. In the many well-established museums and galleries or at the newer fledgling arts organizations, a wide array of artistic styles and talents are represented. Often the artists, like Wayne Williams, share their artistic skill and passion through teaching at local colleges. Williams, who is retired after a 35-year career at Finger Lakes Community College, found his calling there. “I didn’t want to teach in public schools,” explains Williams of his career choice. “I wanted to be at the college level. CCFL (the Community College of the Finger Lakes, as it was then known) was literally creating a college, right from scratch.” The year was 1968 and Williams was charged with coordinating the new college’s art program. Rand Darrow, a CCFL student in that first year, remembers attending Williams’ art classes in a commercial building on Main Street just south of the railroad tracks in Canandaigua. Darrow appreciated his instructor’s relaxed manner. “He was a great teacher,” recalls Darrow, “cracking jokes all the time.” Darrow graduated with a major in Liberal Arts and continued on to SUNY Oswego where he earned a BA in fine arts. He taught art to elementary and middle school students for 30 years. These days Williams and Darrow typically cross paths at the Wayne County Arts Council in Newark where Williams and his wife, Marleen, are heavily involved. Williams offers classes in figure drawing and sculpture and hangs the gallery’s shows, including his former student’s “Slavic Tales of Novgorod” this past August. “I’d like to take a sculpture class from him,” says Darrow. In 2003 when Williams retired, the college honored him and another retiring art professor, Tom Insalaco, by renaming its art gallery the Williams-Insalaco Art Gallery. It was known formerly as Gallery 34 to recognize its origins at 34 North Main Street in Canandaigua. Williams held professor’s rank from 1976 and served as director of the art gallery beginning with its opening in 1983. Williams, who was born and raised in Newark, New York, says he began doing art at about age 8. By the time he was in junior high school his career direction seemed clear. He received local and national awards for his art and a scholarship to Syracuse University, from which he graduated in 1958 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture. He continued with graduate work at Syracuse, receiving an MFA in sculpture in 1962. He worked full time as a sculptor until he began teaching. At one point Williams admits he wanted to be a painter, but didn’t want to adopt the abstract expressionist style in vogue in the 1950s, preferring to pursue the realist tradition. He advises any would-be artist to “do what you do because you love it.” After graduation he traveled abroad, spending time in Belgium, the land of his ancestors. “My family’s name was originally Willems,” explains the 73-year old who still relishes the time spent in the Flemish countryside. Williams speaks excitedly about art, referencing the lives of great artists. He acknowledges that American artists do not have the same stature as those in Europe, where Old Masters like Brueghel and Rembrandt are national heroes. These days the energetic Williams, known primarily as a sculptor, is active at the Phelps Arts Center where he is on the board of directors. In mid-September when a group of visitors on a motor coach tour explored artworks displayed in the beautiful church-turned- gallery, they were treated to a large number of Williams’ bronze and metal sculptures, along with his charcoal drawings. “I’ve always loved his work because he deals with things, people, and animals you understand,” says the center’s Director Emeritus Marion Donnelly, who has known him for many years. Outside the Phelps Community Historical Society, Williams’ life-size figure of a farmer raises his pitchfork above a colorful flower garden on the front lawn. Inspired by the peasants working the fields in Europe, the metal figure is shown with wooden shoes. This is Williams’ largest copper piece, loaned to the Phelps museum in connection with Artistry in Sculpture, a community exhibition in 2009. Williams added a new base using a metal wagon...

'Anturan' is a contemporary abstract cast glass sculpture by David Ruth from his Internal Space & Standing Stones series. It features painterly brushstroke formations in glass called...

Translucent alabaster head sculpture with expressive natural veins, carved in direct carving for a unique interplay of light, stone and human form. This unique alabaster head sculpt...

This work encapsulates Zura's deep exploration of the human form, rendered with raw immediacy and emotional resonance. The sculpture’s sensuous curves and rough, tactile surface invi...

"Synopsis" by Elsbeth Halvorsen Vever (American, b. 1929). Box sculpture combines aluminum, sand, bone, glass and a magnifier. Signed "Elsbeth Vever 1982" on verso. Image, 24.50"L x 13.75"H x 4"W. Using bone as the central image Elsbeth has assembled an optical and visual experience. One view is the magnification and juxtaposition of the floating effect of the curvature in the stainless steel background; stand back and it's a hologram effect. The first image shows clearly the hologram effect available to the eye of the viewer. From a review of her show of box constructions in Providence, Rhode Island: "Viewing her box constructions is a lot like a walk in the moonlight. What we know, or think, to be true in the hard brightness of daytime reality dissolves into an amorphous space of multiple possibilities and perspectives." Born in Purdys, New York, Elspeth Halvorsen is the daughter, granddaughter, and mother of professional artists. She has studied at prestigious academic and artistic institutions includingthe New School for Social Research, the Art Students League, and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In 1955, she moved to Provincetown, Massachusetts, establishing her home and studio in the former residence of Mark Rothko. Provincetown not only remains her home but also acts as a personal, social, and artistic source of inspiration for her work. Shortly after arriving in Provincetown, Halvorsen and her husband, the late Tony Vevers...

Charna Rickey 1923 - 2000 Mexican-American Jewish Woman artist. Signed Bronze House of Books, Architecture Bronze sculpture, signed Charna Rickey and on the front "House of the book." It depicts an open Torah. Original patina. Approx. dimensions: 7 in. H x 9 in. W x 8.5 in. D. Weight: 13.1 lbs. Modernist Judaica Sculpture Born Charna Barsky (Charna Ysabel or Isabel Rickey Barsky) in Chihuahua, Mexico, the future artist lived in Hermosillo and immigrated to Los Angeles when she was 11. She was educated at UCLA and Cal State L.A., she married furniture retailer David Rickey and explored art while raising their three daughters. Moving through phases in terra cotta, bronze, marble and aluminum, she found success later in life. Rickey became one of the original art teachers at Everywoman's Village, a pioneering learning center for women established by three housewives in Van Nuys in 1963. She also taught sculpture at the University of Judaism from 1965 to 1981. As Rickey became more successful, her sculptures were exhibited in such venues as Artspace Gallery in Woodland Hills and the Courtyard of Century Plaza Towers as part of a 1989 Sculpture Walk produced by the Los Angeles Arts Council. Her sculptures have also found their way into the private collections of such celebrities as Sharon Stone. Another of Rickey's international creations originally stood at Santa Monica College. In 1985, her 12-foot-high musical sculpture shaped like the Hebrew letter "shin" was moved to the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The free standing architectural Judaic aluminum work has strings that vibrate in the wind to produce sounds. Rickey also created art pieces for the city of Brea. They commissioned some amazing art pieces by Laddie John Dill, Walter Dusenbery, Woods Davy, Rod Kagan, Pol Bury, Niki de Saint Phalle, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Larry Bell, John Okulick...

This squirrel is made by Dutch Artist Frans van Straaten. Van Straaten should be called an artist of balance always searching for harmony between force and movement in combination with space. Because of the wide range in his art-education he has mastered the art of drawing, painting and sculpting technology. However, the classical plastic art of sculpture and modelling opens up the possibility for him to create his own language of sculpture in answer to his urge for art. Due to this style of sculpting, the preference for bronze is natural. After his study of sculpture at the Academy of Art in Rotterdam (1988), Frans van Straaten creates bronze sculptures in which he unites force and movement. Feeling and Emotion converted into Matter Sculpture is an experience of space combined with the challenge of the three-dimensional. The tension of space and movement are the themes, which Frans expresses in his sculptures. Summary it can be said that the power of life and being, the feeling and emotion by force and movement will be converted into matter. The experience of space is being expressed in the shapes and characters in each of Frans’ sculptures. His sculptures of bulls express explosive power while the horses find their strength in being elegant. Each sculpture recalls this way their own association and serves as a metaphor for a certain emotion. Feelings, which has inspired the artist for each sculpture. Powerful and Elegant Looking at the works of this artist, it becomes very clear that one of his most important sources is his background in art history. The Renaissance period as well as several Italian artists served as inspiration to Frans as a sculpture. For instance the expressions in Leonardo da Vinci’s artworks, and also Giovanni Bologna...