Claude Levy

Claude-Levy Cast Iron Sculpture of Flora, Dated 1925

1925

White stone head in the art deco style. Born in Lithuania at the end of the nineteenth century, Boris Lovet-Lorski studied art at the Imperial Academy of Art in St. Petersburg before working briefly as an architect. He immigrated to New York in 1920 and became an American citizen five years later. His sculptures epitomize the ideals of the Art Deco decades: comprised of sleek lines and smooth surfaces, the streamlined compositions reflect the new technological forms of the machine age. Despite their modernist treatment, Lovet-Lorski’s elegant, stylized figures reference both ancient and classical sources and are characterized by a universal and serene sensibility. Concentrating on figural busts, familial groups, and standing female nudes as his subject matter, the artist rendered them in a variety of media. The materials range from the traditional bronze and marble to exotic woods and unusual stones; each is carefully selected so that its surface texture and color contribute to the emotive aura of the work. Carved out of a block of limestone, Untitled (Head) depicts a female visage nearly androgynous in its idealization. The delicate features of her face, the long, straight nose, thin pursed lips and high cheekbones, are made even more diminutive by the massive bulk of the stone that serves as their backdrop. The prominent widow’s peak of her hairline and the strong arch of her brow, two of Lovet-Lorski’s most distinctive characteristics, are elongated to accentuate the linear rhythms of the composition. The layers of her hair are delineated by stepped striations reminiscent of archaic precedents, which meld into structural columns and connect the form architecturally to the stone’s mass. Unlike the majority of Lovet-Lorski’s sculptures, in which the heads of the figures are tilted to the side or downward to convey a pensive mood, the woman in Untitled (Head) looks straight ahead. Her frontal positioning gives the composition a nearly perfect symmetry, in turn endowing the work with a still, eternal sensibility. The notched surface of the surrounding limestone stands in sharp contrast to the smoothness of her skin. In the twenties, the artist tended to finish his sculptures to a highly polished degree of refinement, but in the thirties he began to experiment with contrasts of texture and the aesthetic of the fragment. In this respect, the work is vaguely evocative of Egyptian funerary sculptures, in which the figures were carved with an eye for three-dimensionality but were left intact in a larger piece of stone to give them physical durability and permanence. Embodying classical ideals of stoicism and universal beauty, the sculpture ultimately exudes a surface allure that is difficult to resist. A similar example of this approach can be seen in the 1937 sculpture Diana, which resides in the permanent collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. Carved from a piece of black Belgian marble, the work is a stylized bust of the Greek goddess Diana...

John Sloan, 1871-1951 Shine, Washington Square, 1923 Etching 5 X 7 inches Sloan-5 Signed lower right: “John Sloan” and Titled by the artist lower center: “Shine, Washington Square” Recorded: Peter Morse. John Sloan’s Prints...

Kiddie Kar exemplifies the integration of the primitive aesthetic and the depiction of family in William’s work. The primitive aspect of this particular painting is apparent in its d...

Moon Over Bay, ca. 1920 Oil on board 8 x 10 inches

Dale Nichols, 1904-1995 The Tree of Knowledge, Science, ca.1940 Ink and china white on paper Initialed: dn Provenance: Susan Teller Gallery...

Emile Antoine Verpilleux, 1888-1964 Pasture, ca. 1920 Original woodcut, printed in colors 12 x 16 Signed in pencil

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

Speckled Sage (2022), gray concrete abstract face sculpture, metal wire, earthy Biomorphic and earthy yet industrial style wall sculpture, she...

Marbled Sage (2022), gray concrete abstract face sculpture, metal wire, earthy Biomorphic and earthy yet industrial style wall sculpture, shel...

Whitewashed Sage (2022), gray and white concrete abstract face sculpture, metal wire, earthy Biomorphic and earthy yet industrial style wall sculpture, shelf sculpture or tabletop s...

Biomorphic and earthy yet industrial style wall sculpture, shelf sculpture or tabletop sculpture. Abstracted face sculpture made with concrete, pigment and wire. The piece is smoot...

Concrete Head Unique Figurative Abstract Geometric Figure Grey Contemporary In Stock Concrete head is a figurative, abstract, geometric, figure, grey po...