Maurice Guiraud-Rivière

"La Comete" Iconic French Art Deco Silvered Bronze 1920s Female Nude

c. 1925

"Mercury" NYC 1931 Bronze 5th Ave Traffic Light Sculpture American Art Deco WPA In the late 1920s, Joseph Freedlander was asked by the City of New York ...

Breton Wrestlers Plaster Figurative Modern Male Sculpture Female Artist LGBT WPA Malvina Hoffman (American, 1885 - 1966) "Breton Wrestlers" 20 inches high Plaster Signed and titled BRETON WRESTLERS, PARIS, 1929 Stamped "MPI on the back of the base, likely a museum reproduction of the bronze. The Sculpture is recorded in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Inventories of American Painting and Sculpture database under the Control Number: IAS 9E260042. Artist's quote about the subject: "The wrestlers were done from actual Breton athletes, at St. Guenole – the tip end of Finistere in Brittany, France. After I saw them on the beach there I persuaded them to come to Paris where I could finish the details of the three positions and have them authenticated. This form of wrestling, I am told, is no longer permitted, as there were too many serious accidents, and sometimes broken necks." -M. Hoffman April 27, 1962 Born in New York City, Malvina Hoffman was a portrait sculptor of pieces that expressed the fluid movement of dancers and lofty human values. She became especially noted for her hall-of-fame portraits including Paderewski, Pavlova, Wendell Wilkie and Katharine Cornell. Many of her pieces she carved in stone, and some of them were enormous in scale including war monuments. Her masterpiece is considered to be The Races of Man, done in 1933, commissioned by the Marshall Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. It had one-hundred five separate pieces, cast in bronze, depicting people from diverse cultures. She grew up in an art-oriented environment in Manhattan where her father was a pianist and music filled the house. She attended the Brearley School and took private art classes, first studying painting with John White Alexander. Changing to sculpture, she did her first work in 1909, a portrait bust of her father who died that year leaving the family in financial straits. However, his portrait was accepted for the National Academy of Design's annual exhibition and launched her career. She studied with Herbert Adams...

A fine quality, twentieth-century bronze model of a roaring lioness by Alberic Collin (Belgian 1886-1962). Prior to casting by the Valsuani foundry it w...

Demetre Haralamb Chiparus (also known as Dumitru Chiparus) (16 September 1886 in Dorohoi, Romania - 22 January 1947 in Paris, France) was a Romanian Art Deco* era sculptor who lived and worked in Paris. He was born in Romania, the son of Haralamb and Saveta. In 1909 he went to Italy, where he attended the classes of Italian sculptor Raffaello Romanelli. In 1912 he traveled to Paris to attend the Ecole des Beaux Arts* to pursue his art at the classes of Antonin Mercie and Jean Boucher. Demetre Chiparus died in 1947 and was buried in Bagneux cemetery, just south of Paris. The first sculptures of Chiparus were created in the realistic style and were exhibited at the Salon of 1914. He employed the combination of bronze and ivory, called chryselephantine*, to great effect. Most of his renowned works were made between 1914 and 1933. The first series of sculptures manufactured by Chiparus were the series of the children. The mature style of Chiparus took shape beginning in the 1920s. His sculptures are remarkable for their bright and outstanding decorative effect. Dancers of the Russian Ballet, French theatre, and early motion pictures were among his more notable subjects and were typified by a long, slender, stylized appearance. His work was influenced by an interest in Egypt, after Pharaoh Tutankhamen's tomb was excavated. He worked primarily with the Edmond Etling and Cie Foundry in Paris administrated by Julien Dreyfus. Les Neveux de J. Lehmann was the second foundry which constantly worked with Chiparus and produced the sculptures of his models. Chiparus rarely exhibited at the Salon. In 1923 he showed his Javelin Thrower, and in 1928 exhibited his Ta-Keo dancer. During the period of Nazi persecution and the World War II, the foundries discontinued production of work by Chiparus. The economic situation of that time was not favorable to the development of decorative arts and circumstances for many sculptors worsened. Since the early 1940s almost no works of Chiparus were sold, but he continued sculpting for his own pleasure, depicting animals in the Art Deco style. At the 1942 Paris Salon, the plaster sculptures Polar Bear and American Bison were exhibited, and in 1943 he showed a marble Polar Bear and plaster Pelican. Sculptures of Dimitri Chiparus represent the classical manifestation of Art Deco style in decorative bronze ivory sculpture. Traditionally, four factors of influence over the creative activity of the artist can be distinguished: Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, ancient Egyptian art, and French theatre. Early motion pictures were among his more notable subjects and were typified by figures with a long, slender, stylized appearance. Some of his sculptures were directly inspired by Russian dancers. Quite often, Chiparus used the photos of Russian and French dancers, stars and models from fashion magazines of his time. After the tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in 1922, the art of ancient Egypt...