Francesco Piranesi

Large 18th Century Engraving by Francesco Piranesi Laocoonte Grand Tour

1790

Antique carving of a saint or martyr. 17th century Flemish hardwood carving. Wonderful wear and rich color.

Bronze heron by American sculptor Wayne Williams. Signed and dated 1993. Edition 2/2. Mounted on a walnut base. From Finger Lakes Magazine 2001: Art is everywhere in the Finger Lakes. Inspired by the region’s diverse scenery and lifestyles, artists pursue their creativity outdoors, in studios and in workshops. In the many well-established museums and galleries or at the newer fledgling arts organizations, a wide array of artistic styles and talents are represented. Often the artists, like Wayne Williams, share their artistic skill and passion through teaching at local colleges. Williams, who is retired after a 35-year career at Finger Lakes Community College, found his calling there. “I didn’t want to teach in public schools,” explains Williams of his career choice. “I wanted to be at the college level. CCFL (the Community College of the Finger Lakes, as it was then known) was literally creating a college, right from scratch.” The year was 1968 and Williams was charged with coordinating the new college’s art program. Rand Darrow, a CCFL student in that first year, remembers attending Williams’ art classes in a commercial building on Main Street just south of the railroad tracks in Canandaigua. Darrow appreciated his instructor’s relaxed manner. “He was a great teacher,” recalls Darrow, “cracking jokes all the time.” Darrow graduated with a major in Liberal Arts and continued on to SUNY Oswego where he earned a BA in fine arts. He taught art to elementary and middle school students for 30 years. These days Williams and Darrow typically cross paths at the Wayne County Arts Council in Newark where Williams and his wife, Marleen, are heavily involved. Williams offers classes in figure drawing and sculpture and hangs the gallery’s shows, including his former student’s “Slavic Tales of Novgorod” this past August. “I’d like to take a sculpture class from him,” says Darrow. In 2003 when Williams retired, the college honored him and another retiring art professor, Tom Insalaco, by renaming its art gallery the Williams-Insalaco Art Gallery. It was known formerly as Gallery 34 to recognize its origins at 34 North Main Street in Canandaigua. Williams held professor’s rank from 1976 and served as director of the art gallery beginning with its opening in 1983. Williams, who was born and raised in Newark, New York, says he began doing art at about age 8. By the time he was in junior high school his career direction seemed clear. He received local and national awards for his art and a scholarship to Syracuse University, from which he graduated in 1958 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture. He continued with graduate work at Syracuse, receiving an MFA in sculpture in 1962. He worked full time as a sculptor until he began teaching. At one point Williams admits he wanted to be a painter, but didn’t want to adopt the abstract expressionist style in vogue in the 1950s, preferring to pursue the realist tradition. He advises any would-be artist to “do what you do because you love it.” After graduation he traveled abroad, spending time in Belgium, the land of his ancestors. “My family’s name was originally Willems,” explains the 73-year old who still relishes the time spent in the Flemish countryside. Williams speaks excitedly about art, referencing the lives of great artists. He acknowledges that American artists do not have the same stature as those in Europe, where Old Masters like Brueghel and Rembrandt are national heroes. These days the energetic Williams, known primarily as a sculptor, is active at the Phelps Arts Center where he is on the board of directors. In mid-September when a group of visitors on a motor coach tour explored artworks displayed in the beautiful church-turned- gallery, they were treated to a large number of Williams’ bronze and metal sculptures, along with his charcoal drawings. “I’ve always loved his work because he deals with things, people, and animals you understand,” says the center’s Director Emeritus Marion Donnelly, who has known him for many years. Outside the Phelps Community Historical Society, Williams’ life-size figure of a farmer raises his pitchfork above a colorful flower garden on the front lawn. Inspired by the peasants working the fields in Europe, the metal figure is shown with wooden shoes. This is Williams’ largest copper piece, loaned to the Phelps museum in connection with Artistry in Sculpture, a community exhibition in 2009. Williams added a new base using a metal wagon...

Bronze art deco ram sculpture by Paul A. Lobel from the RKO Roxy Theater, Rockefeller Center, New York. Hand wrought. Provenance: RKO, Roxy Center Theatre; Mr. Eugene Lee Schoen; Mr. Neal Prince & Mr. Herbert Wade Hemphill Jr.; Mr. Neal Prince; The Trust of the above; Heritage Auctions. Presented by Joseph Dasta Antiques Paul Lobel (1899 - 1983): The accomplishments of Paul A. Lobel, industrial designer, metalsmith, sculptor and cartoonist/illustrator, may be viewed as the quintessential American success story. Born in Romania, at the turn of the century, he emigrated to the United States while an infant, and, from humble beginnings on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, grew up to attain a one-man show in Paris in 1925, win two awards at the International Exposition of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1932, be the subject of two exhibitions at the American Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art in New York City. He also founded an innovative jewelry and metals studio/shop in New York’s Greenwich Village. Furthermore, his contemporaries regarded him with awe and almost everything he attempted came to fruition. In the summer of 1926 Lobel exhibited 35 works, including drawings, etchings, paintings, metalwork and sculpture, in a one-man show at the Grande Librairie Universelle in Paris. During the next year, he toured London, Rome, Florence, Rotterdam, Brussels and Berlin, then, broke, returned to America where he again rented desk space and tried to resume his advertising career. But he was haunted by the modern design that he had been exposed to in Paris. So, after borrowing money to open a metalwork studio on Lexington Avenue, he sought out architect Eugene Schoen, an enthusiast of modern design, whom he had formerly been introduced to by Boardman Robinson. Schoen was in the process of opening a gallery devoted to showing the work of designers and craftsmen imbued with the spirit of modernism...

Bronze statue of young goatherder by Oscar Gladenbeck. circa 1900. Signed "Oscar Gladenbeck Friedrichshagen". period sculpted artist sculpture collectio...