David Aronson

Large Bronze Sculpture "Virtuoso" Figure American Boston Figural Modernist

I have seen this piece identified as Wizard and as Micawber from Charles Dickens David Copperfield ("something will turn up") Aronson, David 1923- David Aronson, son of a rabbi, was born in Lithuania in 1923 and immigrated to America at the age of five. He settled in Boston, Massachusetts where he studied at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts under Karl Zerbe, a German painter well known in the early 1900s. Aronson later taught at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts for fourteen years and founded the School of Fine Art at Boston University where he is today a professor emeritus. An internationally renowned sculptor & painter, Aronson has won acclaim for his interpretation of themes from the Hebrew Talmud and Kabala. His best known works include bronze castings, encaustic paintings, and pastels. His work is included in many important public and private collections, and has been shown in several museum retrospectives around the country. He is considered to be one of the most important 20th century American artists. At twenty-two David Aronson had his first one-man show at New York's Niveau Gallery. The next year, six of his Christological paintings were included in the Fourteen Americans exhibition at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art where Aronson’s work was included alongside abstract expressionists Arshile Gorky, Robert Motherwell and Isamu Noguchi. In the 1950s, Aronson turned more toward his Jewish heritage for the inspiration for his art. Folklore as well as Kabalistic and other transcendental writings influenced his work greatly. The Golem (a legendary figure, brought to life by the Maharal of Prague out of clay to protect the Jewish community during times of persecution) and the Dybbuk (an evil spirit that lodges itself in the soul of a living person until exorcised) frequently appear in his work. In the sixties, Aronson turned to sculpture. His work during this period is best exemplified by a magnificent 8’ x 4’ bronze door which now stands at the entrance to Frank Lloyd Wright's Johnson Foundation Conference Center for the Arts in Racine, Wisconsin. In the seventies and eighties, Aronson continued his work in pastel drawings, paintings, and sculptures, often exploring religion and the frailties of man's nature. During this time, in addition to a traveling retrospective exhibition and many one-man shows in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston at the Pucker-Safrai Gallery on Newbury Street, Aronson won many awards and became a member of the National Academy of Design in New York. Two years ago he retired from teaching to work full-time in his studio in Sudbury, Massachusetts. included in the catalog Contemporary Religious Imagery in American Art Catalog for an exhibition held at the Ringling Museum of Art, March 1-31, 1974. Artists represented: David Aronson, Leonard Baskin, Max Beckmann, Hyman Bloom, Fernando Botero, Paul Cadmus, Marvin Cherney, Arthur G. Dove, Philip Evergood, Adolph Gottlieb, Jonah Kinigstein, Rico Lebrun, Jack Levine, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, Abraham Rattner, Ben Shahn, Mark Tobey, Max Weber, William Zorach and others. Selected Awards 1990, Certificate of Merit, National Academy of Design 1976, Purchase Prize, National Academy of Design 1976, Joseph Isidore Gold Medal, National Academy of Design 1976, Purchase Prize in Drawing, Albrecht Art Museum 1975, Isaac N. Maynard Prize for Painting, National Academy of Design 1973, Samuel F. B. Morse Gold Medal, National Academy of Design 1967, Purchase Prize, National Academy of Fine Arts 1967, Adolph and Clara Obrig Prize, National Academy of Design 1963, Gold Medal, Art Directors Club of Philadelphia 1961, 62, 63, Purchase Prize, National Institute of Arts and Letters 1960, John Siimon Guggenheim Fellowship 1958, Grant in Art, National Institute of Arts and Letters 1954, First Prize, Tupperware Annual Art Fund Award 1954, Grand Prize, Third Annual Boston Arts Festival 1953, Second Prize, Second Annual Boston Arts Festival 1952, Grand Prize, First Annual Boston Arts Festival 1946, Traveling Fellowship, School of the Museum of Fine Arts 1946, Purchase Prize, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 1944, First Popular Prize, Institute of Contemporary Art 1944, First Judge's Prize, Institute of Contemporary Art Selected Public Collections Art Institute of Chicago Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Bryn Mawr College Brandeis University Tupperware Museum, Orlando, Florida DeCordova Museum Museum of Modern Art Print Collection, New York Atlanta University Atlanta Art...

Leonard Baskin, American 1922-2000 Homage to the Un-American Activities Committee Bronze relief sculpture plaque This is not editioned, nor signed or numbered, on the piece but according to the catalog there was 12 or less. A number of these are in museum and university art collections and one of them was exhibited at MoMA NY. This was done to commemorate the communist witch hunts of the Mccarthy era. An important, historic piece. Leonard Baskin (August 15, 1922 – June 3, 2000) was an American sculptor, illustrator, wood-engraver, printmaker, graphic artist, writer and teacher. Baskin was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. While he was a student at Yale University, he founded Gehenna Press, a small private press specializing in fine, small edition, book production. From 1953 until 1974, he taught printmaking and sculpture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Subsequently Baskin also taught at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. He lived most of his life in the U.S., but spent nine years in Devon at Lurley Manor, Lurley, near Tiverton, close to his friend Ted Hughes, for whom he illustrated Crow. Sylvia Plath dedicated Sculpto to Leonard Baskin in her famous work, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960). The Funeral Cortege (1997) bronze, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial, Washington, D.C. His public commissions include a bas relief for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial and a bronze statue of a seated figure, erected in 1994 for the Holocaust Memorial in Ann Arbor, Michigan. His works are owned by many major museums including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boca Raton Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Honolulu Museum of Art, the Udinotti Museum of Figurative Art and the Vatican Museums. The archive of his signed work at the Gehenna Press was acquired by the Bodleian Library at Oxford, England, in 2009. The McMaster Museum of Art in Hamilton, Ontario owns over 200 of his works (some religious and biblical), most of which were donated by his brother Rabbi Bernard Baskin. Contemporary Religious Imagery in American Art. Catalog for an exhibition held at the Ringling Museum of Art, March 1-31, 1974. Artists represented: David Aronson, Leonard Baskin, Max Beckmann, Hyman Bloom, Fernando Botero, Paul Cadmus, Marvin Cherney, Arthur G. Dove, Philip Evergood, Adolph Gottlieb, Jonah Kinigstein, Arman, Rico Lebrun, Jack Levine, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, Abraham Rattner, Ben Shahn, Mark Tobey, Max Weber, William Zorach and others.In 1955, he was one of eleven New York artists featured in the opening exhibition at the Terrain Gallery, they showed many great artists, Chaim Koppelman, for many years, headed the gallery's Print Division; printmakers such as Will Barnet, Leonard Baskin, Robert Conover, Edmond Casarella...

This is an outstanding early bronze figural sculpture reminiscent of Henry Moore, executed by a lifelong sculptor Elias Lifshitz. "I am King of Creation" Base only: 7 x 8.5, 3.5 in...

Artist: George Gach, Hungarian (1909 - 1996) Title: Moses Year: 1966 Medium: Bronze Sculpture, signature and date inscribed Size: 17 x 11 x 10 in. (43.18 x 27.94 x 25.4 cm)