Minna Harkavy

Bronze Modernist Sculpture Portrait, Leo Stein by Minna Harkavy WPA Artist

c.1930-1940

Charna Rickey 1923 - 2000 Mexican-American Jewish Woman artist. Signed Bronze House of Books, Architecture Bronze sculpture, signed Charna Rickey and on the front "House of the book." It depicts an open Torah. Original patina. Approx. dimensions: 7 in. H x 9 in. W x 8.5 in. D. Weight: 13.1 lbs. Modernist Judaica Sculpture Born Charna Barsky (Charna Ysabel or Isabel Rickey Barsky) in Chihuahua, Mexico, the future artist lived in Hermosillo and immigrated to Los Angeles when she was 11. She was educated at UCLA and Cal State L.A., she married furniture retailer David Rickey and explored art while raising their three daughters. Moving through phases in terra cotta, bronze, marble and aluminum, she found success later in life. Rickey became one of the original art teachers at Everywoman's Village, a pioneering learning center for women established by three housewives in Van Nuys in 1963. She also taught sculpture at the University of Judaism from 1965 to 1981. As Rickey became more successful, her sculptures were exhibited in such venues as Artspace Gallery in Woodland Hills and the Courtyard of Century Plaza Towers as part of a 1989 Sculpture Walk produced by the Los Angeles Arts Council. Her sculptures have also found their way into the private collections of such celebrities as Sharon Stone. Another of Rickey's international creations originally stood at Santa Monica College. In 1985, her 12-foot-high musical sculpture shaped like the Hebrew letter "shin" was moved to the Rubin Academy of Music and Dance at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The free standing architectural Judaic aluminum work has strings that vibrate in the wind to produce sounds. Rickey also created art pieces for the city of Brea. They commissioned some amazing art pieces by Laddie John Dill, Walter Dusenbery...

TEMPIO BRETTON: from the catalogue MONUMENTA, 19th International Sculpture Biennale, Antwerp, Belgium. Tempio Bretton was created in homage to the celebrated English landscapist Capability Brown for the occasion of an exhibition at Bretton Hall in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park , a park in the style of the great master of English garden design. The inclusion in the English garden of a temple ruin, or "eye-catcher," (architectural folly) was used to draw the eye and mind to a focus in time and space, present the beholder with an immediate relationship to an historic past made new within his or her own surroundings, and create a depth of space never before seen in garden design. I took the idea of the temple ruin eye-catcher and reduced it to a scale at the point where architecture and sculpture merged. Tempio Bretton is not capacious enough to walk into, yet it is considerably larger than a man. One view of it presents a knot of golden columns clustered together, topped by a dome shape. The only clue from this side to the temple's non-conformity to historic principle is a sharp notch cut into the square base. Viewed from the opposite side, the cluster of columns capped by an angular top opens up as if to welcome someone in, yet the mysterious core is still impenetrable. These contradictions articulate a confrontation between past and present, and an exciting truth. The past is always at the heart of our constructions in the present. Walter Dusenbery (born September 21, 1939 in Alameda, California) is an American sculptor. He attended the San Francisco Art Institute, earned an MFA from California College of Arts and Crafts, and then studied in Japan and Italy under Isamu Noguchi. He also held teaching positions at Harvard University and University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Design. From 1971 to 1988, he lived both in Pietrasanta,Italy, and in Little Italy, New York City. Dusenbery's preferred material is stone, particularly travertine or granite. Dusenbery has a particular interest in adding sculpture to public places, such as federal buildings, to humanize the space, but in 1988, he assembled a show of small, entirely hand-carved alabaster sculptures, called "Walter Dusenbery, The Personal Side," at the Fendrick Gallery in Washington, D.C.. In 1977, Dusenbery created Pedogna, on permanent loan from The Metropolitan Museum of Art to Landmarks, the public art program of The University of Texas at Austin. That same year, 1988, he was awarded a large commission for the Fulton County Building Atrium in Atlanta, Georgia. The commission was for three fountains and related structures over three stories in height, designed for informal and ceremonial public events, Limestone, marble, granite and travertine fountains, pavilions, seating and meeting areas, performance and concert platforms, staircases and planters for hanging gardens. After completion of the "Atlantacropolis," Dusenbery withdrew from the gallery world and focused his energy on site-specific commissions. (like the landscape works of Maya Lin and Beverly Pepper) Seeking a large-scale stone studio for projects closer to home, he discovered there were none. In 1995, he approached sculptor and patron of sculpture J. Seward Johnson Jr. with the idea of creating a state-of-the-art stone-carving studio, so that American sculptors would not have to travel abroad to realize their work. Johnson agreed to fund such a facility, if Dusenbery would direct it. In 1996, Dusenbery designed the facility for the Stone Division at Johnson Atelier Technical Institute of Sculpture, and was its first director. The facility was situated in "a building resembling an airplane hangar," The studio offered the ability to digitally scan three-dimensional forms. The Stone Division was a success and attracted a strong group of sculptors: Magdalena Abakanowicz, Lawrence Argent, Barry X Ball...