Dudley Vaill Talcott

Child's Restaurant Waitress

circa 1929

Initialed and dated: "DVT 61". From the estate of the artist. In fine condition.

Media: Plaster, Blue, Gold Leaf Signed and titled in pencil on base. Stamped with a wax seal.

Modernist nude bronze sculpture by Houston, TX artist David Adickes. The sculpture depicts an abstract armless female nude torse that stands on a wooden base. The piece is signed by the artist at the back of the sculpture's left leg. Artist Biography: Born (1927) and raised in Huntsville, TX, David Adickes is an artist whose art and heart are closely aligned with Paris, France. After studying art at the Atelier F. Leger in the late 40s, Adickes burst onto the art scene in Houston and elsewhere in the early 50s and has been a prominent member of Houston’s art community ever since. While his most visible works are his giant sculptures, from the Virtuoso in downtown Houston...

The bronze sculpture "Owl" is an exaggerated rendition of an owl that emphasizes the bird's most prominant characteristics - a big fluffy round body and large unblinking eyes making it a charicature of the bird. It is very touchable and calls for one to pet its rounded back. Tom Brun, the sculptor and zookeeper, is well-known for his wood, stone, marble, ceramics and ivory sculptures. One of them, a large hippopotamus, carved from walnut wood travelled the world in the State Department collection. It is said that Tom would often go into a house and pick up one of his sculptures and say that it was unfriendly – meaning that it had not been handled enough. Morley Driver has said of Brun in a newspaper article from the 1950’s “In Any Animal He Sees Beauty”: No one who has ever seen a Tom Brun hippopotamus will ever again think of it as ugly or ungainly, meaning that the artist not only gives you beauty but teaches you to see it. Tom has said: “Small pieces are like a proverb – a gem of meaning that one can dissect.” They are meant to be picked up, caressed and held. This owl, too, seems destined to be caressed. Brun was born in England in 1913. A few years after the end of World War I his father moved the family in 1919 to Detroit, Michigan. In 1935 at age 23, he officially became a U.S. citizen. He served in the army during World War II for five years and upon discharge and at the age of 36 took advantage of the GI Bill and applied for admission to Society of Arts and Crafts (now known as the College for Creative Studies) where he was gladly accepted. While at Arts and Crafts his instructors and established artists such as Sarkis Sarkisian, John P. Foster, Morris Brose, Richard Koslow, Patricia Burnett, Lloyd and Renee Radell...