ITZHAK SANKOWSKY Sculptures

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, Woods Davy, Rod Kagan, Pol Bury, Niki de Saint Phalle, Magdalena Abakanowicz, Larry Bell, John Okulick...

Wonderful small scale abstract figurative stone Venus sculpture by Doris Ann Warner (American, 1925-2010), 1975. A highly abstracted female form is expressed through the organic, fl...

This polished bronze bust is sealed with Glasurit- a car finish that is baked on. It prevents the sculpture from tarnishing or yellowing. All you need to do is dust with a soft cloth. This bust is from a full figure wood sculpture...

A very heavy, massive bronze sculpture by an important Chicago sculptor. Signed and marked "Firenze" with "Fuse Marinelli". METROPOLIS. Seven abstract shapes on black marble base. 1...

Upon discovering a weathered steel drum that had been warped to resemble the sleeve of a garment, artist Gordon Chandler was inspired to embark on a series of kimono sculptures formed from found metal scraps. With an eye to the aesthetic possibilities of this humble material, Chandler invests the reclaimed steel with sculptural fluidity and a wry sense of form. Flattened with the center portion rolled out and the sides left open, this discarded barrel takes on the look of a miniature jacket. Coated with a mint green finish, the eroded metal appears as draped fabric, folded back to form a simple collar. The sculpture is finished with the artist's initials stamped...

Inspired by dance and weightlessness, Granville Beals' industrial metal sculptures are primarily about relationships. Concerned with form and abstracti...

Henry Moore (1898-1986) Mother and Child: Petal Skirt conceived in 1955; cast in 1955 bronze; edition 4 of 6 plus 1 artist’s proof by the Fiorini foundry, London 19 x 9 x 15.5 cm (in...

Striking bronze organic sculpture by Latin American sculptor Raúl Valdivieso (Chilean, 1931-1993). Valdivieso is known for his reinterpretation of the ...

"The Test," 1970 Aluminum sculpture in 5 parts. Artist's cipher and AP stamped into male figure, front, 20 5/16" x 12 1/2" x 6 5/7" (approx.) American sculptor King is most noted for his long-limbed figurative public art sculptures depicting people engaged in everyday activities such as reading or conversing. He created his busts and figures in a variety of materials, including clay, wood, metal, and textiles. William Dickey King was born in Jacksonville, Florida. As a boy, William made model airplanes and helped his father and older brother build furniture and boats. He came to New York, where he attended the Cooper Union and began selling his early sculptures even before he graduated. He later studied with the sculptor Milton Hebald and traveled to Italy on a Fulbright grant. Mr. King worked in clay, wood, bronze, vinyl, burlap and aluminum. He worked both big and small, from busts and toylike figures to large public art pieces depicting familiar human poses — a seated, cross-legged man reading; a Western couple (he in a cowboy hat, she in a long dress) holding hands; a tall man reaching down to tug along a recalcitrant little boy; a crowd of robotic-looking men walking in lock step. Mr. King’s work often reflected the times, taking on fashions and occasional politics. In the 1960s and 1970s, his work featuring African-American figures (including the activist Angela Davis, with hands cuffed behind her back) evoked his interest in civil rights. But for all its variation, what unified his work was a wry observer’s arched eyebrow, the pointed humor and witty rue of a fatalist. His figurative sculptures, often with long, spidery legs and an outlandishly skewed ratio of torso to appendages, use gestures and posture to suggest attitude and illustrate his own amusement with the unwieldiness of human physical equipment. His subjects included tennis players and gymnasts, dancers and musicians, and he managed to show appreciation of their physical gifts and comic delight at their contortions and costumery. His suit-wearing businessmen often appeared haughty or pompous; his other men could seem timid or perplexed or awkward. Oddly, or perhaps tellingly, he tended to depict women more reverentially, though in his portrayals of couples the fragility and tender comedy inherent in couplehood settled equally on both partners. His first solo exhibit took place in 1954 at the Alan Gallery in New York City. King was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2003, and in 2007 the International Sculpture Center honored him with the Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award. Mr. King’s work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Hirshorn Museum at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, among other places, and he had dozens of solo gallery shows in New York and elsewhere. Reviews of his exhibitions frequently began with the caveat that even though the work was funny, it was also serious, displaying superior technical skills, imaginative vision and the bolstering weight of a range of influences, from the ancient Etruscans to American folk art to 20th-century artists including Giacometti, Calder and Elie Nadelman. The New York Times critic Holland Cotter once described Mr. King’s sculpture as “comical-tragical-maniacal,” and “like Giacomettis conceived by John Cheever.”

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...

Sculpture from the Ballet series. The series is dedicated to classical ballet and includes over 30 sculptures. This sculpture depicts a dancer tying p...

Girl Omaggio a Picasso (Tribute to Picasso) Murano glass sculpture 15.5" H x 12" W x 5" D This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist. Signed, tit...