Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 9

Silvana Cenci
Italian Silvana Cenci Signed Mid Century Modern Steel Gold Explosion Sculpture

$3,500
£2,645.57
€3,040.23
CA$4,873.73
A$5,421.82
CHF 2,842.19
MX$66,253.36
NOK 36,191.71
SEK 34,069.49
DKK 22,694.13
Shipping
Retrieving quote...
The 1stDibs Promise:
Authenticity Guarantee,
Money-Back Guarantee,
24-Hour Cancellation

About the Item

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, Ivanhoe Fortier and Louise Nevelson. In a catalog for one such show, in 1963, Carpenter wrote that he envisioned the Bundy Center for the Arts (as he called it then) as "a country museum where space would be an inherent commodity and painting and sculpture could be viewed leisurely against a Vermont landscape." Silvana Cenci created unique sculptures and wall-reliefs by blasting metal with high-powered explosives. She stated: "I feel a direct involvement with the material--the explosion is immediate, and yet controlled, violent and exact." Cenci studied art at the Accademia di Belle (Florence, Italy, 1946), the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere (Paris, France, 1949) and Lewis and Clark College (Portland, Oregon, 1951). She exhibited widely, including at the Bristol Art Museum (Bristol, Rhode Island), the Symphony Hall (Boston, MA) and Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff, AZ). Her work is included in several public collections, including the collections of the Colonnade Hotel (Boston, MA), the Galleria d'Arte Moderna (Florence, Italy), the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (Boston, MA), and the Milhouse-Bundy Performing and Fine Arts Center (Waitsfield, VT). In 1974, Cenci received a Research in Creative Art Grant from the Blanche Colman Foundation (Boston, MA). Cenci lived in Sedona Arzona in the 1970s and early 1980s. This sculpture was formed by explosion and a liquid gold wash was added. The material has a unique ability to gather light and interesting dimensions are formed as the light bounces around it. Structurally the sculpture is very strong. The vast majority of her work is either in museums or private collections. Regarding her use of dynamite, nitroglycerin and TNT explosives in making art, Cenci said: "It is simultaneously conception and birth, and if I am not pleased with the result, well then, I do not have to reject months of labor.". Selected Bibliography Brolin, Brent C. and Jean Richards. Sourcebook of Architectural Ornament: Designers, Craftsmen, Manufacturers and Distributors of Custom and Ready-Made Exterior Ornament. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1982. Cooper, Ed. "Cenci Sculptures at Nova." The Christian Science Monitor (Tuesday, November 21, 1961) p. 7, illus. Hughes, John A. "Explosion in Northwood." New Hampshire Profiles vol. 13 no. 6 (June 1964) pp. 38-39, 56, illus.
  • Creator:
    Silvana Cenci (1926 - 2000, Italian)
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 28.88 in (73.36 cm)Width: 28.88 in (73.36 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    minor wear commensurate with age and technique.
  • Gallery Location:
    Surfside, FL
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU38212376102

More From This Seller

View All
Rare Aharon Bezalel Israeli Gilt Modernist Bronze Sculpture Suite
By Aharon Bezalel
Located in Surfside, FL
The width dimensions are variable. the tallest height is 11.5 inches. Family group. A suite of three bronze sculptures. Aharon Bezalel (born Afghanistan 1926) Born in Afghanistan in 1926 and immigrated to Israel at an early age. As a youth was engaged as a silversmith and craftsman, and was a student of the sculptor Zev Ben-Zvi from whom he absorbed the basic concepts of classic and modernist art and interpreted, according to them, ideas based on ancient Hebrew sources. Aharon Bezalel works and resides in Jerusalem, he taught art for many years. “I saw myself as part of this region. I wanted to find the contact between my art and my surroundings. Those were the first years of Jean Piro’s excavations at the Beer-Sheba mound. They found there, for example, the Canaanite figurines that I especially liked and that were an element that connected me with the past and with this place.” “…a seed and sperm or male and female. These continue life. The singular, the individual alone, cannot exist; I learned this from my father who dabbled with the Kabbalah.” (Aharon Bezalel, excerpt from an interview with David Gerstein) “The singular in Aharon Bezalel’s work is always potentially a couple if not a threesome[…] the one is also the many: when the individual is revealed within the group he will always seek a huddling, a clinging together. The principle of modular construction is required by this perception of unity and multiplicity, as modular construction in his work is an act of conception or defense. Two poles of unity, potentially alone, exist in A. Bezalel’s world: From a formal, sculptural sense these are the sphere and pillar, metaphorically these are the female in the final stages of pregnancy and the solitary male individual. Sphere-seed-woman; Pillar-strand-man. The disproportional, small heads in A. Bezalel’s figures leave humankind in it’s primal physical capacity. The woman as a pregnancy or hips, the man as an aggressive or defensive force, the elongated chest serves as a phallus and weapon simultaneously. (Gideon Ofrat) EIN HAROD About the Museum's Holdings: Israeli art is represented by the works of Reuven Rubin, Zaritzky, Nahum Gutman, Mordechai Ardon, Aharon Kahana, Arie Lubin, Yehiel Shemi, Yosl Bergner and others. The graphic arts collection contains drawings and graphic works by Pissaro, Modigliani, Pascin, Chagall (almost all of his graphic work), and numerous other artists. The sculpture collection includes works by Jewish sculptors from all over the world including leading Israeli sculptors; Ben Zvi, Lishansky, David Palombo, Yehiel Shemi, Aharon Bezalel and Igael Tumarkin. Many Jewish sculptors from all parts of the world, beginning with Antokolski, are represented in the collection. In the sculpture courtyard there are works by Chana Orloff, Jacob Epstein (the works he bequeathed to the Museum), Glicenstein, Loutchansky, Constant and Indenbaum from Western Europe; Glid from Yugoslavia; Zorach, Gross and Harkavy from the United States; and most of the outstanding sculptors of Israel : Ben-Zvi, Lishansky, Ziffer, Lehmann, Feigin, Sternschuss, Palombo ( who executed the iron gate...
Category

1970s Expressionist Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Vintage Abstract Expressionist Ibram Lassaw Modernist Bronze Sculpture Pendant
By Ibram Lassaw
Located in Surfside, FL
IBRAM LASSAW (Russian-American, 1913-2003), Sculptural pendant Gold plated bronze Signed verso Measurements: 2-7/8''h, 2-1/4''w. Ibram Lassaw was born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Russian Jewish émigré parents. After briefly living in Marseille, France, Naples, Italy Tunis, Malta, and Constantinople, Turkey his family settled in Brooklyn, New York, in 1921.His family settled in Brooklyn, New York. He became a US citizen in 1928. Ibram Lassaw, one of America's first abstract sculptors, was best known for his open-space welded sculptures of bronze, silver, copper and steel. Drawing from Surrealism, Constructivism, and Cubism, Lassaw pioneered an innovative welding technique that allowed him to create dynamic, intricate, and expressive works in three dimensions. As a result, he was a key force in shaping New York School sculpture.He first studied sculpture in 1926 at the Clay Club and later at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York. He made abstract paintings and drawings influenced by Kandinsky, Sophie Taeuber Arp, and other artists. He also attended the City College of New York. Lassaw’s encounter with avant-garde art in the International Exhibition of Modern Art (1926), organized by the Société Anonyme at the Brooklyn Museum, made a powerful impression on him. In the early 1930s he explored new materials and notions of open-space sculpture. The ideas of László Moholy-Nagy and Buckminster Fuller were important to him, and he knew the work of Julio González, Pablo Picasso, and the Russian Constructivists. After experimenting with plaster, rubber and wire, Lassaw began working with steel, which became a frequent medium for the artist, along with other metals. His work reflects the influence of Surrealist artists such as Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miro as well as American Modernist Alexander Calder.A pioneer of abstract sculpture in the United States, in 1936 Lassaw was a founding member of the organization American Abstract Artists. Between 1933 and 1942 he worked for various federal arts projects: the Public Works of Art Project, Civil Works Authority, and WPA, the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. In 1938 he produced his first welded work. He served with the U.S. Army, where he learned direct welding techniques. During the 1940s he experimented with cage constructions and with acrylic plastics, adding color to his sculptures by applying dye directly to their surfaces. In 1949 Lassaw was a founder of the Club, an informal discussion group of avant-garde artists that had developed from gatherings at his studio, on Eighth Street. During the mid-1930s, Lassaw worked briefly for the Public Works of Art Project cleaning sculptural monuments around New York City. He subsequently joined the WPA as a teacher and sculptor until he was drafted into the army in 1942. Lassaw's contribution to the advancement of sculptural abstraction went beyond mere formal innovation; his promotion of modernist styles during the 1930s did much to insure the growth of abstract art in the United States. He was one of the founding members of the American Abstract Artists group, and served as president of the American Abstract Artists organization from 1946 to 1949. In 1951, Samuel Kootz invited Lassaw to join his gallery in New York. He also had a summer gallery in Provincetown, MA. Lassaw had been summering in Provincetown since 1944, and in 1951 rented an apartment next door to the Kootz Gallery. Among the artists in the Kootz Gallery were Jean Arp, William Baziotes, Georges Braque, Jean Dubuffet, Herbert Ferber, Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, David Hare, Hans Hofmann, Fernand Leger, Georges Mathieu, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Soulages, and Maurice de Vlaminck. Lassaw is a sculptor who was a part of the New York School of Abstract expressionism during the 1940s and 1950s. Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, James Brooks, Willem de Kooning, and several other artists like Lassaw spent summers on the Southern Shore of Long Island. Lassaw spent summers on Long Island from 1955 until he moved there permanently in 1963. SELECT EXHIBITIONS 1961 International Exhibition of Modern Jewelry 1890–1961, organized by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1967 Exhibition of Jewelry by Painters and Sculptors, organized for circulation by MoMA 1973 Jewelry...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Expressionist Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Gold, Bronze

Mid Century Modern Brutalist Welded Abstract Expressionist Sculpture
Located in Surfside, FL
Neo-Dada Abstract Sculpture: Assemblages In contrast, abstract sculpture followed a slightly different course. Rather than focusing on non-figurative subject matter, it concentrated...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Expressionist Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Metal

Gold Gilt Bronze Sculpture Pendant Art Israeli Tumarkin Abstract Surrealist
Located in Surfside, FL
Measures about 5.25 X 3.75 inches. Box is 17 X 13 inches. Signed by artist verso. From the literature that I have seen I believe the edition size was limited to 10, I do not know if ...
Category

1960s Surrealist Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Gold, Bronze

1965 Canadian Israeli Art Brutalist Abstract Welded Steel Sculpture Eli Ilan
Located in Surfside, FL
Eli Ilan (אלי אילן), 1928-1982 was an Israeli sculptor. Abstract organic pod shape. in either steel or iron mounted on a wooden plinth. Ilan was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He enrolled in a premedical curriculum at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and emigrated to Israel in 1948. He then studied prehistoric archaeology and physical anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. In 1956, he returned to Canada to study sculpture at the Ontario College of Art & Design. He lived in Kibbutz Sasa from 1959 to 1963. He died in 1982 in Caesarea, Israel. Education 1955 Hebrew University, Jerusalem, pre-historic archaeology and physical anthropology 1956 Ontario College of Art, Toronto, Canada, sculpture under Thomas Bowie 1959 Training College, Ottawa, criminal identification techniques 1969 Art Festival, Painting & Sculpture in Israel. Ganei Hataarucha, Tel Aviv Artists: Chana Orloff, Eli Ilan, Zvi Aldouby, Jacob El Hanani, Ludwig Blum, Aharon Bezalel, Koki Doktori, Israel Hadany, Marcel Janco, Dov Feigin, Abel Pann, Esther Peretz Arad, Reuven Rubin, Ivan Schwebel, Jakob Steinhardt, Boris Schatz, Bezalel (Lilik) Schatz, Louise Schatz...
Category

1960s Abstract Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Stainless Steel

1970s French Brutalist Welded Steel and Raw Mineral Specimen Sculpture Signed
By Jacques Lerebourg
Located in Surfside, FL
Jacques Lerebourg hand made abstract metal sculpture in welded and polished metal with inclusion of a natural quartz or crystal mineral specimen. part of a distinguished group of Fre...
Category

1970s Arte Povera Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Steel

You May Also Like

Large Abstract Gilded Metal Sculpture by Philippe Cheverny, 1970s
By Philippe Cheverny
Located in Chicago, IL
An abstract sculpture by French artist Philippe Cheverny, rendered in gilded metal. Its Brutalist form emerges from molten metal, poured and shaped into a freeform silhouette. Rests ...
Category

Vintage 1970s French Brutalist Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Metal

Brass Sculpture by Tossello, Signed in Brass and Aluminium Dated 1999
Located in Auribeau sur Siagne, FR
This 1970s sculpture is in brass and Aluminium. This is a Brutalist typical work of Jean Jacques Tossello, but this model is rare. It is signed and dated 1999.
Category

1990s French Mid-Century Modern Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Brass, Aluminum

Mid-Century Brass and Metal Wall Sculpture in the Manner of C.Jere, circa 1970
Located in Philadelphia, PA
A mid-century brass and metal wall sculpture in the manner of C.Jere, circa 1970.  
Category

Vintage 1970s American Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Metal

1980 Italy Bronze Abstract Sculpture by Lino Tiné Albero Città City Tree
By Lino Tine
Located in Brescia, IT
This intense and engaging abstract sculpture was create in 1980 by the Italian artist Lino Tinè. This is a multiple of 300 specimens, numbered and signed by...
Category

Late 20th Century Italian Post-Modern Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Mid Century Modern / Brutalist Metal Wall Sculpture signed W. Vose
By William Vose
Located in Buffalo, NY
Mid Century Modern / Brutalist Metal Wall Sculpture signed W. Vose...Perfect addition to your Mid Century , contemporary. eclectic setting .
Category

Vintage 1970s American Brutalist Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Metal, Brass, Copper

Rare Large Curtis Jere Abstract Brass Sculpture
By Curtis Jeré
Located in Redding, CT
Rare Large Curtis Jere Abstract Brass and Marble Sculpture. Amorphic articulating sculpture that can rotate on an axis . Great addition to any modern home. Original Curtis Jere Artis...
Category

Vintage 1980s Mid-Century Modern Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Marble, Brass