Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 2

Steve Linn
"12 Bar Blues for Bird" sculpture portrait of Charlie Parker

2005

$28,000
£21,634.86
€25,011.93
CA$39,566.02
A$44,375.93
CHF 23,238.99
MX$539,210.80
NOK 295,096.20
SEK 279,771.99
DKK 186,701

About the Item

Sandblasted carved glass, wood and bronze. Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor, conducting meticulous research on each of his selected subjects and choosing which references to interpret for the piece he then creates. Jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker -- nicknamed "Yardbird" or just plain "Bird" -- was born in 1920 in Kansas City. He was a product of the legendary jam session battles that occurred in the after-hours clubs during his late adolescence and he began playing professionally in the Jay McShann Big Band. In the early 1940s he formed one of the most famous quintets of all time with Dizzy Gillespie on trumpet, Thelonious Monk on piano, Charlie Christian on guitar, and Kenny Clark on drums. He was one of the founders of bebop and the most respected alto saxophone player of all times. Even though hard living cut Parker's career short (he died at 34, looking like an old man) his mastery of his instrument and improvisation remains to this day the level to which all succeeding players strive. The music in the background of Linn's portrait of Parker was written especially for this piece by jazz pianist and composer Karen Lehrer, who studied with Lennie Tristano, the piano player with Charlie Parker in the 1949 Metronome All Stars. Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor, and indeed, his work rests on the meticulous research he conducts on each of his selected subjects and the interpretation of the references he chooses to develop for each one. Yet his definition would seem to leave out the intensity Linn puts into the materiality of the work. His range of preference is vast and often surprising, using wood, glass, bronze, other metals, and now even holograms to depict the clues he gives the viewer about the work and personality of his subject. He most often combines them all and his mastery of each craft is truly impressive. The subjects Linn chooses for his multi-faceted portraits are often visual artists and musicians he admires, but also sports legends, workmen, and craftsmen (and women). Each tableau contains one or several views of the face or torso, first painstakingly drawn and then most often carved from plate glass or cast from a ceramic original via the kiln-formed glass technique. Tools and objects we would easily associate with the person if known to us are added in a careful composition, but Linn does not stop there. His Portraits series, begun over 50 years ago, now includes more elaborate installations and invites the viewer more deeply into the influences and relationships -- webs that creative humans weave.
  • Creator:
    Steve Linn
  • Creation Year:
    2005
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 62 in (157.48 cm)Width: 51 in (129.54 cm)Depth: 16 in (40.64 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Glen Ellen, CA
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU71214402662

More From This Seller

View All
"Provocateur (Marcel Duchamp)" wall sculpture portrait
Located in Glen Ellen, CA
Sandblasted carved glass, cast glass, bronze and wood. Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor, conducting meticulous research on each of his selected subjects and ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

"The Imaginary Quartet" wall sculpture
Located in Glen Ellen, CA
Portrait of: Antonio Vivaldi (violin), Niccolo Paganini (violin), Pablo Casals (cello), Paul Hindemith (viola) Cast glass, laser-cut steel and wood. ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Steel

"Provocateur (Marcel Duchamp)" wall sculpture
Located in Glen Ellen, CA
Sandblasted carved glass, cast glass, bronze and wood. Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor, conducting meticulous research on each of his selected subjects and ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

"Boxes of Dreams (Louise Nevelson)" sculpture portrait
Located in Glen Ellen, CA
Sandblasted carved glass, wood and bronze. Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor, conducting meticulous research on each of his selected subjects and choosing whi...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

"Streaming Obelisk" pedestal kinetic sculpture
Located in Glen Ellen, CA
Sculptor Jeff Glode Wise's expertise as a jewelry maker is immediately evident in the pedestal-sized kinetic sculpture "Streaming Obelisk." The mixed media ...
Category

Early 2000s Contemporary Abstract Sculptures

Materials

Concrete, Bronze, Gold

"Maxwell Street" wall sculpture
Located in Glen Ellen, CA
Sandblasted carved glass, cast glass, bronze and wood. Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor, conducting meticulous research on each of his selected subjects and choosing which references to interpret for the piece he then creates. "I was born and raised in Chicago," Linn says, "and in 1956 before my 13th birthday, my father took me to Maxwell Street to buy me my first suit. This was a momentous occasion, not because I was getting a suit, but it was my introduction to the blues. Maxwell Street was the center of Jewish pushcart commerce and haberdashery emporiums, it was also where black blues musicians congregated, played, and thrived in harmony with their neighbors. My dad let me stay and listen that day and I became a life-long fan." The merchants provided electrical extension cords from their establishments to power the amplifiers of the musicians, and in return the musicians were an attraction to lure customers into the shops. Many famous blues musicians got their start on Maxwell Street having migrated to the city from the deep south: Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, and Howlin...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

You May Also Like

Just Jazz
By Tony Dagradi
Located in New Orleans, LA
Medium: Wood, cutouts from books TONY DAGRADI is an internationally recognized jazz performer, artist, composer, author, and educator. For over three decades he has made his home in...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Paper, Wood

Willitts Designs "Sax Appeal" Musician Cast Resin Sculpture, Signed & Numbered
Located in Plainview, NY
A Collectible Jazz Sculpture By Willitts Designs International and Sheng Lung entitled " Sax Appeal" and numbered 62001. This Amazing Resin Metal Jazz Scul...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Modern Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Resin

Saxophone Jazz Musician Charlie Parker Record Album Cover Illustration
Located in Miami, FL
This is more than a cover illustration depicting the legendary Charlie Parker playing the saxophone. It's an inventive graphic design concept from trailblazing illustrator Robert Weaver. By showing the subject in two parts. The artwork's visual idea is as radical as Parker's music. A wide shot and a close-up butted together dynamically communicates an energetic motion and movement in a still image. Signed lower right. Record album cover illustration for Charlie Parker: Bird with Strings Live at the Apollo, Carnegie Hall and Birdland (Columbia Records, 1976). From Wikipedia: Robert Weaver (July 5, 1924 – September 4, 1994) was an American illustrator who was considered a pioneer of a contemporary approach to the field that began in the 1950s. Biography Beginning in 1952, he embarked on a mission to combine the visual ideas found in fine art with the responsibility of journalist. At the time, many practitioners of illustration were expected to paint and draw for advertising and magazine assignments with artwork that was conservative, idealized and saccharine, while other illustrators such as Ronald Searle, Arthur Szyk, George Grosz, Kathe Kollwitz and later Ralph Steadman and Tomi Ungerer injected their own opinion into the matter. Weaver joined this latter tradition by moving his role of an illustrator from a page decorator to a journalist. He ventured from the typical haven of an illustrator's studio into the world and used a pencil to observe, record facts, and draw real life based visual essays, the way that illustrators such as Burt Silverman and Franklin McMahon did. This approach would later be termed "visual journalism" and in 1983 would form the basis of a special masters degree, Illustration as Visual Essay, from the School of Visual Arts in New York. He died at his home in Manhattan on September 4, 1994.[1] Career and legacy In an article for the AIGA in 1990, noted graphic art historian Steve Heller categorized Weaver as a journalistic illustrator. Other artists included Bob Gill, Jack Beck, Robert Andrew Parker, Thomas B. Allen and Philip Hays. They received crucial assignments from a group of visionary art directors that included Cipe Pineles...
Category

1970s Contemporary Portrait Paintings

Materials

Acrylic, Board

"Louis Armstrong Blowing His Trumpet, " Unique Painted Fiberglass
Located in Milwaukee, WI
"Louis Armstrong Blowing His Trumpet" is a unique painted fiberglass sculpture depicting the jazz musician Louis Armstrong. The sculpture is 32" x 48". Louis Daniel Armstrong was a...
Category

1970s Other Art Style Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Fiberglass, Acrylic

"Mannequin Bass" Hybrid Instrument Assemblage Wall Sculpture
Located in New York, NY
This sculpture created by Ken Butler is a bass guitar made from a naked female mannequin torso and leg. On the wall the torso is upside down, with the neck of the bass running along ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Assemblage Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Found Objects, Mixed Media

Double Bass Scroll, maquette
Located in Greenwich, CT
Edition of 10 American, b. 1966 Sculptor Peter Kirkiles stresses that the inspiration for his metal sculptures comes from the satisfaction of the process of fabricating a piece in ...
Category

2010s Contemporary Still-life Sculptures

Materials

Bronze