James Bearden

Brutalist Sculpture, Gilded Steel and Bronze

Wall-hanging sculpture: blackened steel, fused bronze, solvent dyes, abstract form, USA; Signed; 20 x 8 x 3 1/4 Suggesting archaeological artifacts from the future, these sculptures and functional pieces have been described as post-apocalyptic and brutalist in style, and they’re capturing the attention of collectors and galleries across the country. Bearden was born in Alabama but grew up in Des Moines and received bachelor’s degrees in fine art and visual communications from Grand View University. He worked in graphic design for 20 years, most of that time as an award-winning art director at Flynn Wright advertising agency. In 2007, at the age of 43, he decided to leave that job and focus on fine art. A longtime painter, Bearden found himself drawn to sculpture. The work of Pablo Picasso, Harry Bertoia, Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson particularly inspired him. His early pieces were smooth, abstract shapes made from wire and sheets of steel painted with bright colors, evoking pop art. That felt like a dead end, he says, so he went in the opposite direction, building both organic and architectonic forms encrusted with craggy texture and charred, corroded or patinated finishes. In 2012 Bearden entered his first public art competition. His sculpture, Paths Unite, was accepted for Clive’s Art Along the Trail and then purchased for the city’s permanent collection. He also has outdoor sculptures at Blank Park Zoo and Lowe Art Center in Marion, as well as in Ames, Coralville and Plymouth, Minnesota. Rago auction brought Bearden’s sculptures to the attention of Larry Weinberg, owner of Weinberg Modern in New York. Weinberg began collecting Bearden’s work for himself and his gallery. This past winter, he curated a solo show of Bearden’s sculptures and functional pieces at 1stdibs Gallery in the New York Design Center. Weinberg compares Bearden’s style to the brutalist furniture of Paul Evans (1931-1987), a midcentury modern craftsman described as “the father of the modern art-furniture movement.” Brutalism as an architectural style emerged after World War II and was characterized by the use of rough concrete as the primary building material. The term has been revived in the past few years to apply to a raw, un-prettified approach to web design as well as to the 1960s-1970s interior design aesthetic that emphasized rugged textures, distressed metals, unfinished concrete and industrial materials. He went on to create cabinet-like boxes that he categorized as Dwelling Boxes, Harry Boxes (a tribute to the late sculptor and modern furniture designer Harry Bertoia), Barnacle Boxes...

Silvana Cenci, internationally renowned explosive sculptor, died October 1, 2000 at her home in Gray. Ms. Cenci, who was born in Florence, Italy, before World War II, married Stuart Church and moved to the U.S. permanently in 1959. She lived in Boston for many years, where she was a founder of the Brookline Art Center and a founding member of Summerthing. She exhibited widely throughout Europe and the U.S., and her work is in many museums and public and private collections. After moving to the States, Ms. Cenci began working with new technologies from the aircraft industry, and with explosives. She moved to Northwood, NH, in the early 60s, and pursued and perfected her revolutionary experimentation with explosive sculpture in stainless steel. A native of Italy, she lived most of her life in America where she became internationally known, primarily for using dynamite to blast images into stainless steel and finishing some pieces with pure gold. The pieces created with dynamite were often utilized by architects. One piece titled “Wheels in Motion” hung in Boston’s South Station. Education and Training Accademia di Belle Arti, Florence, Italy Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, Paris Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon Selected Individual Exhibitions Galleria Numero, Florence, Italy Galleria San Carlo, Naples, Italy Galleria d'Arte Totti, Milan, Italy Galeria Beno, Zurich, Switzerland Nova Gallery, Boston Weeden Gallery, Boston Capricorn Gallery, New York City Roach-Hoffman Gallery, Naples, Florida Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island, retrospective Frank Tanzer Gallery, Boston Symphony Hall, Boston Musica Viva, Cambridge, Massachusetts Los Llanos Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff Selected Group Exhibitions "Oregon Artists," Lincoln County Art Center, Lincoln, Oregon "Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture," Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington "West Coast Sculptors," Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon "Mostra Nazionale del Bianco e Nero," Museo Civico Castello Urasino, Catania, Italy "New England Art Today," Northwestern University, Boston "New England Sculptors Association," Boston City Hall, Boston "Silvana Cenci and Calvin Libby," Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island "Adele Seronde and Silvana Cenci," Weeden Gallery, Boston "Contemporary Italian Art-Italian Heritage," Boston City Hall, Boston, catalog "Explosion of Form, Color, Imagination: Works by Silvana Cenci Selected Awards First Honorable Mention, "Design in Transit," Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Competition, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Massachusetts Research in Creative Art Grant, Blanche E. Colman Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts Statue of Victory, World Culture Prize for Letters, Arts and Sciences, Centro Studi e Ricerche delle Nazioni, Salsomaggiore Terme, Italy Harvard-pedigreed architect Harlow Carpenter built the Bundy in 1962. The venue's first decade was lively with exhibitions that featured a large cast of artists, including Dino Basaldella, Judith Brown, Silvana Cenci, Xavier Corbero...

STEEL ROOM, 1989, steel sculpture, 8 x 8 x 8”, signed and dated. Peter Lodato was born in 1946 in Los Angeles, California, has exhibited extensively and received significant acclai...

This piece is unsigned. Irving Lehman (1900-1983) was an American Jewish painter, sculptor, engraver, and designer. Born in Kiev in then Russia, Lehman studied at the Art Students League, Cooper Union and the National Academy of Art and spent much of his working life in New York City. Part of the Abstract Expressionist school, he worked in oil and watercolor as a painter and in metal and steel as a sculptor; his works have been shown in galleries in England, France, Italy, Israel and Japan, and were included in an international traveling exhibition in Europe in 1951. Like many other artists of his generation, he painted for the WPA and then adopted a more abstract style after WWII. Lehman spent much of his career in NYC. He had his first exhibition at ACA Gallery in 1934. He also exhibited at the Whitney, National Academy, PAFA, Brooklyn Museum, Chicago Art Institute, and others. This work contains Constructivist elements anticipating the more gestural abstraction of the post-WWII New York Abstract Expressionist School. Member of American Art Congress, worked near Woodstock and in Columbia County...

Charles (Charlie) Hewitt American, b. 1946 Urban Rattle 5, 2012 Steel Hand signed and titled to underside Five abstract, painted and patinated figures raised on long stalks from the base at varying angles. A smaller color maquette of the New York Highline public sculpture. Provenance: Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York. Dimensions: 26 X 17 X 6 inches Charlie Hewitt (b.1946) is a nationally known Maine-born painter, printmaker, and sculptor. His work is stylistically rooted in expressionism and surrealism, and is both playful and serious, a quality he shares with artists Alexander Calder, Joan Miro, Paul Klee, and his mentor Philip Guston, who was a major postwar figure of the New York School. Hewitt grew up in a large working-class French Canadian family in the mill-working communities of Lewiston/Auburn and Brunswick, Maine. Hewitt’s work is in numerous private and public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; and in Maine at the Portland Museum of Art, the Farnsworth Museum of Art, and in the art museums at Bates, Bowdoin, and Colby colleges. Charles Hewitt...

Grisha Bruskin (Russian, b. 1945) Vision, 1992 steel Hand signed and inscribed Grisha Bruskin in Cyrillic numbered 117/300 Genre: Contemporary Subject: Religious Medium: Steel Gri...

37.5cms high x 24.5 x 12 Bronze on a weathered steel base Unique Stamped with monogram signature and uniquely numbered 869 The natural bronze elements are lacquered for protection a...

30 x 30 x 18cms high Bronze on a stainless steel base. Edition of 9 variations Stamped with monogram signature and uniquely numbered 287, 9/9 on underside of base. The edges in natur...

This cast bronze sculpture by Steve Turner is the interplay of positive and negative space creating a trio of dynamic interaction. The bronze sculpture ...

Sculptures 'Wandobjekt' by Carola Eggeling Abstract sculpture with beautiful curved lines. Set of 3 German aluminum and bronze sculptures Finishes: - Aluminum white lacquered - Al...

Olympiad. Hand fabricated steel with patina, bronze rod. Unique, one of a kind. 19 x 19 x 14" sculpture. Powder coated steel base, 3"h, 12"w, 9"d. There are two sides to any circle:...

TECHNICAL INFORMATION Harry Bertoia Spray 1979 (year completed) Steel wire, bronze 37 h x 13 dia in. Sold with a certificate of authenticity from the Harry Bertoia Foundation and a...