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

“Eden”

1987

About the Item

Original hand cast bronze dual figure of a hollow dressed torso of a male and female representing Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The bronze sculpture is attributed to the American sculptor Judith Shea. This piece is a maquette for a life size bronze executed by this artist that is located in an outdoor space in Buffalo, New York. Both are titled “Eden” and were done in 1987. Condition is excellent. Unsigned. Label on the bottom of the thick pine base states the artist and title of the artwork. Provenance: A Long Island, New York collector. Judith Shea has been a notable presence in the New York art world since the 1970s. Trained as a designer at Parsons, she soon found the fashion industry too restrictive and abandoned it in favor of making art. For her first solo show, at The Clocktower in 1976, Shea made a work based on color theory, using transparent silks in a spectrum of colors, worn by a live model. Other early work referenced clothing and its construction, first as flat, minimalist pattern and later as molded draping over implied, absent figures. In the 1981 Whitney Biennial, Shea showed three simple forms that evoked iconic clothes of the 1950s and 60s—the overcoat and the simple sheath dress—which hung from the wall as if on hangers. Five related works were included in the Hirshhorn’s Directions 83 survey. All of these works evoke human presence, felt as absence, as if the clothes were placeholders for missing persons. Thinking about her earlier clothes-based works, Shea has said that she “was looking for characters, for personae, really, to occupy them. I used clothes as stand-ins for people.” With the support of NEA grants, Shea began to learn bronze casting, and she was able to also spend time in Paris studying the statuary of its parks and gardens. This research led to several hollow-figure compositions from the 1980s that were designed to be sited in public spaces, such as Eden (John Hancock Tower, Chicago), Shepherd’s Muse (Oliver Ranch), Shield (Sheldon Museum of Art), and Without Words (Walker Art Center). In the 1990s, after a residency at Chesterwood—the site of Daniel Chester French’s studio in Stockbridge—Shea began to use woodcarving to make monumental public sculpture. The first of these full-scale wooden figures were shown in 1992 at the Whitney Museum at Phillip Morris in New York. In 1994 her wooden equestrian statue The Other Monument, a monumental image of a black man on a black horse, was installed at Doris Freedman Plaza in New York, in the same plaza as the William Tecumseh Sherman Monument, Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s golden equestrian figure. Following several periods abroad, including in Bellagio as a Rockefeller Foundation Resident, in Rome as a Fellow at the American Academy, and in Oaxaca as a winner of the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Artist’s Award, Shea began a group of works in 2000 that deal with the figure imagined as character and icon. This work set the stage for the evolution of her next major body of work, which she titled Judith Shea: Legacy Collection. The direct source of the Legacy Collection was the artist’s experience of 9/11: Shea’s home was, and still is, near Ground Zero. In this very personal response, Shea fashioned a group of mannequin-like figures looking skyward, elegant in gray felt, dusted by debris. Several works from the Legacy Collection series have been acquired by the Yale University Art Gallery, where they are now on view. In addition to the Yale Art Gallery, Shea’s work is included in many public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, and Whitney Museum of American Art. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards; recent honors include the Anonymous Was a Woman Award, in 2011, and the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, in 2012.
  • Attributed to:
    Judith Shea (1948, American)
  • Creation Year:
    1987
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 12.5 in (31.75 cm)Width: 10.5 in (26.67 cm)Depth: 6 in (15.24 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Southampton, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU14113490532

More From This Seller

View All
“Standing Female Nude”
Located in Southampton, NY
Here for your consideration is an original beautifully patinated solid bronze standing female nude by the Bulgarian/American artist, Ana Ranguel Daltchev. Incised artist signature o...
Category

1970s Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

“Expecting”
Located in Southampton, NY
Original terracotta sculpture by the American sculptor William Huppert. Titled “Expecting”. Circa 1960. Post Modern. Overall height 18 inches including base. Base is 6 wide by 5.25 ...
Category

1960s Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Terracotta

"The Farewell Kiss"
By Evgeny Lanceray
Located in Southampton, NY
This is a beautiful original bronze casting by the foremost Russian sculptor of his day Evgeny Lanceray. Artist signed on the base in Cyrillic (image 5) and is also inscribed on the ...
Category

Late 19th Century Realist Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

"Salut Au Soleil"
By Georges Dupre
Located in Southampton, NY
French, 1899 SALUT AU SOLEIL, art medal, in bronze by Georges Dupré, in fine condition, (Dark oxidation spot to right of larger figure, slight surface vertical scratch verso); edge ...
Category

1890s Academic Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

“Diana”
By Emmanuel Villanis
Located in Southampton, NY
Beautiful golden brown patina bronze of Diana, the goddess of the moon by the French sculptor, Emmanuel Villanis. Signed on her shoulder. Impressed foundry stamp on base, “Society de...
Category

1880s Academic Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

"Warming Up"
By Victor Manuel Villarreal
Located in Southampton, NY
Bronze ballet dancer by Mexican artist Victor Manuel Villarreal, circa 1985. Signed at base. Condition is excellent. Provenance: Sarasota, Flori...
Category

1980s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

You May Also Like

Rare "Dickhead" Robert Longo Bronze Sculpture
By Robert Longo
Located in Surfside, FL
Very rare cast. (edition of 1 or 2) This work was featured in an article "The Appropriation of Marginal Art in the 1980s Author: Donald Kuspit Source: American Art, Vol. 5, No. 1/2 (Winter - Spring, 1991), pp. 132-141 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. This appears to be modeled after a figure by HR Giger. it was cast by Polich Tallix Foundry. Born in Brooklyn, 1953 Robert Longo became synonymous with American pictorial art during the 80s, his ambitious large-scale works seemingly synchronized with the booming economy and boisterous values of the Reagan era. In 1974, whilst studying at State University College, Buffalo, Longo co-founded Hallwalls. As a studio and exhibition space for contemporary art, Hallwalls was the precursor of Longo's ongoing concern for utilizing art's multi-disciplinary potential. His partner in this venture was Cindy ShermanAfter graduation Longo showed in 1979 at The Kitchen, a downtown space which encouraged artistic experimentation and collaboration. In the following year, he had his first one-person exhibition in Europe, at Studio d'Arte Cannaviello in Milan. Since then, Longo has shown continuously in Europe and America. However, it was his first solo exhibition at Metro Pictures, New York, in 1981 that brought him international critical acclaim. This installation of Men in the Cities presented his charcoal, graphite and dye studies of office workersThis interruption of a smooth linear reading, notably used in Dada and Surrealist collage, undermines assumptions, whether they be cultural, social or political. In 'Men in the Cities' Longo cuts anonymous people from their environments, then splices their portraits in amongst blocks of buildings. The association is made between the private and the corporate, the human and the industrial, the fragile and the impervious. Engagement with the social and political can be seen in Longo's work throughout the 80s, setting him apart from fellow artists David Salle and Julian Schnabel. Following a major retrospective at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1989, Longo began to focus on single themes, rather than montages of associations. Furthermore, he moved to Paris the following year. The 'Black Flag' series resulted from this change in direction, and location. Taking the Stars and Stripes as his subject, Longo re-worked the treatment of the spangled banner by Pop artist Jasper Johns. J Longo is a multi talented artist who works equally successfully in a variety of media. He is equally well known as a sculptor and film director as he is as a draftsman/painter, and like the best of the contemporary film directors, his aim is to seduce, elucidate, transform, and instruct. SELECTED PERMANENT COLLECTIONS Art Institute of Chicago, USA Guggenheim Museum, New York Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, USA Musee d'Art Contemporain, Montreal, Canada Museum of Modern Art, New York Saatchi Collection, London Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands Tate Gallery, London Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, USA The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 'Das Magellan Projekt', Kunsthalle Tubingen, Germany, 1997 'Das Magellan Projekt', Kunsthal Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1997 'Das Magellan Projekt', Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, 1997 'Robert Longo: Kreuze', Museum Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany, 1996 'Robert Longo: A Retrospective', The Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, 1995 'Robert Longo: A Retrospective', Ashikaga City Museum, Kirin Plaza Art Space, Osaka, Japan, 1995 'Faith in Zero' Project: Galerie Daniel Templon, Galerie Antoine Candau, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, A.B. Galleries, Galerie Gordon Pym et Fils, Paris, France, 1991 'Black Flags', Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris, 1990 'Robert Longo 1976 - 1989', The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 1989 'Robert Longo 1976 - 1989', Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, USA, 1989 'Robert Longo 1976 - 1989', Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT, USA, 1989 'Sequences/Men in the Cities', University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach, USA, 1986 'Sequences/Men in the Cities', Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, Texas, USA, 1986 'Sequences/Men in the Cities', Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, Indiana, USA, 1986 Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1985 Metro Pictures, New York, 1981 SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS La Biennale di Venezia: XLVII Esposizioione Internationale d'Arte, Venice, Italy, 1997 'Views From Abroad: European Perspectives on American Art 3', Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1997 'Allegories of Modernism: Contemporary Drawing', The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1992 'A Forest of Signs: Art in the Crisis of Representation', The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, USA, 1989 'Documenta 8', Kassel, Germany, 1987 L?epoque, La Mode, La Morale, La Passion, 1977 - 1987', Mus'e National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, France, 1987 "New York '85" (with Jasper Johns, Elsworth Kelly...
Category

1980s Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Granite, Bronze

The Curious Child - Bronze by Isabelle Levesque
By Isabelle Levesque
Located in Pasadena, CA
Levesque Isabelle was born in 1954 in Antananarivo. She attended the school of fine arts of Brest (France) and practiced sculpture since 1997. She made her first official exhibition ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Sparrow - Contemporary bronze and iron sculpture, one piece
Located in Milan, IT
The bronze sparrow rests on an iron support. Three wires wisely positioned on the upper edge hold it like a swing. Jessica Carroll's elegant artwork results from years of study, ex...
Category

2010s Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze, Iron

Géraldine
By Patrick Brun
Located in Pasadena, CA
Patrick BRUN was born in Paris in 1941. After obtaining his Engineering degree, he began his professional life as a teacher in mathematics and physics. After this period, he started ...
Category

2010s Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Géraldine
$4,635 Sale Price
20% Off
Bérangère with a Hat
By Patrick Brun
Located in Pasadena, CA
Patrick BRUN was born in Paris in 1941. After obtaining his Engineering degree, he began his professional life as a teacher in mathematics and physics. After this period, he started ...
Category

2010s Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Leg Split
By Patrick Brun
Located in Pasadena, CA
Patrick BRUN was born in Paris in 1941. After obtaining his Engineering degree, he began his professional life as a teacher in mathematics and physics. After this period, he started ...
Category

2010s Post-Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Recently Viewed

View All