Jason (Jessie) Herron

Winged Male Figure - Apollo

c. 1930s

This sculpture is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Music (attributed), brass and wire construction, c. 1936, 28 x 14 x 5 inches; perhaps exhibited at Hollywood Riviera Gallery, 1936 (third prize); provenance includes Estate of Jon Spencer Helfen (Los Angeles, CA About the Sculpture In 1935, Philip Paval bought a box of metal in a “blind auction.” Paval, a painter, sculptor, and jeweler, had hoped the box contained silver. To his dismay, it was brass. Seeing an opportunity, Paval started to make sculptures from the brass sheets. His subjects included Cinema, Hollywood, Radio, Dance, Aviation and Music. The works were well-received with the Hollywood crowd and critically acclaimed. Actor and comedian, Ben Bard, purchased four of them for his theater, and novelist and screenwriter, Vicki Baum ordered four more for her drawing room. Movie director King Vidor also purchased them. Los Angeles Times art critic, Arthur Millier, described Paval’s “contraptions” as “ingenious, decorative, different.” Paval exhibited these works for several years in the late 1930s, including at the American Artists’ Congress Gallery in Los Angeles in an exhibition called Formalism and Abstraction in 1938 and at a solo show at Stendahl Galleries in 1939. The appeal of these works must have been irresistible, as a 1936 Los Angeles Times article noted, “Two feet of brass art has been stolen from the Hollywood Riviera Galleries. The work is an abstraction. It portrays the spirit of music and rested on the grand piano in the main hall. The work of Philip Paval, it won third prize in the current gallery exhibition at the gallery.” One can only wonder whether this is the “contraption” which was pilfered from the gallery nearly one hundred years ago. Given the description of the work, its subject matter and size, it seems likely. About the Artist Philip Paval was a sculptor, painter, and jeweler. Born in Denmark, Paval was apprenticed to a silversmith and studied art in Denmark. He immigrated to the US in 1919 and first worked as a merchant seaman in New York. The following year, Paval settled in Los Angeles where he later opened his own jewelry shop featuring works he designed and produced. Paval became a favorite in the entertainment world, making a good living selling silver...

This sculpture is part of our exhibition Charles Goeller: A Wistful Loneliness. Carved and painted wood and gesso, 23 x 15 3/4 x 3 inches, Signed verso "Carved by Charles L. Goeller...

This sculpture is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1940s. Two Figures, 1949, ebony wood, 24 x 7 x 5 inches, unsigned, but comes from Thomas' daughters ...

This sculpture is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1930s Kossack, c. late 1930s, polychromed cedar and walnut relief sculpture, carved signature under the base of the figure, 15 x 8 x 3 1/2 inches (figure), 10 x 19 inches (board), exhibited at Zeidler's solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Art, November - December, 1942 (label verso), label verso reads "Kossack / cedar & walnut / Avis Zeidler" About the Sculpture Kossack is typical of Aviz Zeidler’s direct carved wood sculptures of the 1930s. The subject looks directly at the viewer, unfeeling behind a polychromed stare. Seemingly influenced by two of her major teachers, California’s Ralph Stackpole and New York’s William Zorach, Zeidler drew on primitive traditions to create what one critic described as her “gruesome wood sculptures.” Rigid, solid, and unmoving are other words that characterize Zeidler’s statues which often seem to have the deeply rooted ancient power of a totem. Zeidler’s “grimacing artificiality does, indeed, manage to hold a sense of force,” is how The San Francisco Examiner art critic put it in 1938 when describing the artist’s award-winning entry at the San Francisco Art Museum. The same words could have applied to Kossack when it was exhibited at the museum four years later. Perhaps the artist was trying to contain the power of the fearsome Kossacks, the enemy of so many Eastern European peasants, by freezing the image in wood. About the Artist Avis Zeidler (Nemkoff) was a California-based artist who is principally known for her sculpture and drawings. She was born in Madison, Wisconsin, but moved to Northern California by the late 1920s where she majored in art at Berkely and studied with Lucien Labaudt, Ray Boynton...

(Note: This work is part of our exhibition Connected by Creativity: WPA Era Works from the Collection of Leata and Edward Beatty Rowan) Glazed and incised ceramic, 8 ½ inches diamet...

This painting is part of our exhibition Charles Goeller: A Wistful Loneliness. Oil on canvas, 20 x 15 inches, Signed lower right Exhibited: 1) Portrai...

Brian Russell Jobe (American, b. 1981) is an artist and non-profit director based in Knoxville, Tennessee. Jobe's studio practice is focused on sculptur...

Inflatable Love Doll #9 (2015-2017) Dimensions: 22 in. H x 13 in. W x 12 in. D (70 cm H x 30 cm W x 38 cm D) Concrete sculpture made with plastic and iron. A series of feminine cement chests comprised of plastic sex dolls...

Pagan Christian, 2006-2007 Concrete, glass 26 H × 15 7/10 W × 19 7/10 D in. 66 H × 40 W × 50 D cm Unique The idea of fragment emerged in the concrete sculpture format offers a clear view of the post-modern condition. The employment of mixed materials, apparently difficult to associate, such as concrete and colored glass beads, recall the images from the ancient Roman fragments...

Brandon Vickerd has in the past explored anthropomorphic hybridity and technological impetus through taxidermy and mechanics. For the Wrong Place, Wrong Time exhibition, the artist revisits these themes, this time putting bronze casting in the spotlight. Vickerd imagines anachronistic and incongruous juxtapositions of this material, which is reminiscent of both antique statuary and modern public monuments. These associations provoke laughter or discomfort, and they detonate in the space of the gallery as well as in the urban setting in which a large part of its production is destined. This is undoubtedly where the contextual and temporal inconsistencies evoked by the title of the exhibition reside. Inspired by the material tradition of bronze, the artist relies heavily on references to Greek mythology, which he likes to subvert. With Atlas (2019), Vickerd makes a reversal of the famous story of the bearer of the globe. Rather than bravely supporting the weight of the world, the Titan seems assailed by multiple spheres that hide the top of his body, leaving only his distinguished shoes and his dress pants. The sculpture Flora Hominis (2019) illustrates a transitional state between the human and the plant whose detail evokes the metamorphosis of the nymph Daphne into a tree, once immortalized by Bernini. The artist presents here a fragmentary study of this monument commissioned by the Royal Botanical Gardens of Burlington, Ontario. While the statue aims to honor the founder of the place, the latter is made paradoxically unrecognizable by the vegetation that proliferates on his face. In this way, Vickerd replaces the heroic celebration of his subjects with a partial occultation of their identity. The sculptor deftly adjusts to classic themes the signifiers of the disappointed promises of modernist ideology. On the 50th anniversary of the first US moon landing, Oblivion (Dead Astronaut...

Inspired by various facets of his own life story, Salvadoran-American artist J Oscar Molina creates work that seamlessly bridges cultures, industries, a...

Inspired by various facets of his own life story, Salvadoran-American artist J Oscar Molina creates work that seamlessly bridges cultures, industries, and feelings. With a commitment...