Walter Von Nessen

Chase Walter Von Nessen Horse Bookends Statue

1930

Bronze art deco ram sculpture by Paul A. Lobel from the RKO Roxy Theater, Rockefeller Center, New York. Hand wrought. Provenance: RKO, Roxy Center Theatre; Mr. Eugene Lee Schoen; Mr. Neal Prince & Mr. Herbert Wade Hemphill Jr.; Mr. Neal Prince; The Trust of the above; Heritage Auctions. Presented by Joseph Dasta Antiques Paul Lobel (1899 - 1983): The accomplishments of Paul A. Lobel, industrial designer, metalsmith, sculptor and cartoonist/illustrator, may be viewed as the quintessential American success story. Born in Romania, at the turn of the century, he emigrated to the United States while an infant, and, from humble beginnings on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, grew up to attain a one-man show in Paris in 1925, win two awards at the International Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1932, be the subject of two exhibitions at the American Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He also founded an innovative jewelry and metals studio/shop in New York’s Greenwich Village. Furthermore, his contemporaries regarded him with awe and almost everything he attempted came to fruition. In the summer of 1926 Lobel exhibited 35 works, including drawings, etchings, paintings, metalwork and sculpture, in a one-man show at the Grande Librairie Universelle in Paris. During the next year, he toured London, Rome, Florence, Rotterdam, Brussels and Berlin, then, broke, returned to America where he again rented desk space and tried to resume his advertising career. But he was haunted by the modern design that he had been exposed to in Paris. So, after borrowing money to open a metalwork studio on Lexington Avenue, he sought out architect Eugene Schoen, an enthusiast of modern design, whom he had formerly been introduced to by Boardman Robinson. Schoen was in the process of opening a gallery devoted to showing the work of designers and craftsmen imbued with the spirit of modernism...

This art piece was carefully made, traced, cut and polished till reflections started to appear. The stainless steel, imported from Italy was carefully cut for avoiding burned edges. ...