Michael Ayrton Sculptures

Bust of a man is an original sculpture in bronze realized after Aurelio Mistruzzi in the late 1990s. Bronze casting. 18 cm height, 24 cm height with wooden base. Good conditions.

Max Kalish (American, 1891-1945) Harmony, c. 1930 Bronze with green marble base Incised signature on right upper side of base 14 x 9 x 5 inches, excluding base 17 x 10 x 8 inches, including base Born in Poland March 1, 1891, figurative sculptor Max Kalish came to the United States in 1894, his family settling in Ohio. A talented youth, Kalish enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art as a fifteen-year-old, receiving a first-place award for modeling the figure during studies with Herman Matzen. Kalish went to New York City following graduation, studying with Isidore Konti...

Modernist nude bronze sculpture by Houston, TX artist David Adickes. The sculpture depicts an abstract armless female nude torse that stands on a wooden base. The piece is signed by the artist at the back of the sculpture's left leg. Artist Biography: Born (1927) and raised in Huntsville, TX, David Adickes is an artist whose art and heart are closely aligned with Paris, France. After studying art at the Atelier F. Leger in the late 40s, Adickes burst onto the art scene in Houston and elsewhere in the early 50s and has been a prominent member of Houston’s art community ever since. While his most visible works are his giant sculptures, from the Virtuoso in downtown Houston...

Sydney Kumalo. Features a bronze stylized female figural form sculpture fixed to a marble plinth and wood base. Bears signature on base. Measures 9 1/2" x 4 1/4". There is no edition number on the piece. Sydney Kumalo (1935 - 1988) was born in Sophiatown, Johannesburg, on 13 April 1935. His was one of the families who had to move out of the "white" city to the South Western Townships, or Soweto. Raised in Diepkloof and educated at Madibane High School, he took with him from old Sophiatown the curious and diverse heritage of its heyday. Art classes in the Catholic school, "Sof' town" blues and jazz, the vibrant street culture and growing defiance of its population of various races who were gradually forced out into separate race-group areas. So it was that these various aspects of his early life created for Kumalo a cultural mix of a Zulu family related to the traditional royal house; city schooling, nascent township music and lingo; growing urbanised political defiance and the deep-rooted Zulu pride and respect for the legends and ancient stories of a tribal people. This mix of old and new cultures was reinforced when he began his studies at the Polly Street Art Centre in 1953 where he became a member of Cecil Skotnes group of serious artists who were encouraged to acquire professional skills. Skotnes introduced a basic training programme with modelling as a component, which marked the introduction of sculpting (in brick-clay) at Polly Street. Kumalo was Skotnes’ assistant at Polly Street from 1957 to 1964, and having recognised his great talent as a sculptor, Skotnes encouraged him to become a professional artist. After Kumalo’s very successful assistance with a commission to decorate the St Peter Claver church at Seeisoville near Kroonstad, with painting designs, sculpture and relief panels in 1957, Skotnes arranged for Kumalo to continue his art training by working in Edoardo Villa ’s studio from 1958 to 1960. Working with Villa, he received professional guidance and began to familiarize himself with the technical aspects of sculpting and bronze casting. In 1960 he became an instructor at the Polly Street Art Centre. Kumalo started exhibiting his work with some of the leading commercial Johannesburg galleries in 1958, and had his first solo exhibition with the Egon Guenther Gallery in 1962. He was a leader of the generation who managed to leave behind the forms of African curios, reject the European-held paternalism which encouraged notions of "naive" and "tribal" African art, and yet still hold fast to the core of the old legends and spiritual values of his people. He introduced these subjects into his bronze sculptures and pastel drawings, evolving his own expressive, contemporary African "style". Together with Skotnes, Villa, Cecily Sash and Giuseppe Cattaneo, Kumalo became part of the Amadlozi group in 1963. This was a group of artists promoted by the African art collector and gallery director Egon Guenther, and characterised by their exploration of an African idiom in their art. Elza Miles writes that Cecil Skotnes’ friendship with Egon Guenther had a seminal influence on the aspirant artists of Polly Street: “Guenther broadened their experience by introducing them to German Expressionism as well as the sculptural traditions of West and Central Africa. He familiarised them with the work of Ernst Barlach, Käthe Kollwitz, Gustav Seitz, Willi Baumeister and Rudolf Sharf.” It is therefore not surprising that some of Kumalo’s sculptures show an affinity with Barlach’s powerful expressionist works. Guenther organised for the Amadlozi group to hold exhibitions around Italy, in Rome, Venice, Milan and Florence, in both 1963 and 1964. Kumalo’s career took off in the mid 1960s, with his regular participation in exhibitions in Johannesburg, London, New York and Europe. He also represented South Africa at the Venice Biennale in 1966, and in 1967 participated in the São Paulo Biennale. EJ De Jager (1992) describes Kumalo’s sculpture as retaining much of the “canon and formal aesthetic qualities of classical African sculpture. His work contains the same monumentality and simplicity of form.” His main medium for modelling was terra cotta, which was then cast in bronze, always paying careful attention to the finish of both the model as well as the final cast. He began casting the pieces he modelled in clay or plaster into bronze at the Renzo Vignali Artistic Foundry in Pretoria North. He worked throughout his life with its owners, the Gamberini family, and enjoyed learning the technical aspects of the casting process, refining his surfaces according to what he learned would produce the best results in metal. De Jager further writes that Kumalo’s distinctive texturing of the bronze or terra cotta is reminiscent of traditional carving techniques of various African cultures. “In many respects Kumalo thus innovated a genuine contemporary or modern indigenous South African sculpture”. Kumalo came to admire the works of the Cubists, and of British sculptors Henry Moore and Lynn Chadwick. He became noted for adapting shapes from them into his own figures. The success of his use of the then current monumental simplicity and purely aesthetic abstractions of natural forms has been emulated by many South African sculptors since the 1970s. He was in many ways the doyen of South African Black art. As such he was an important influence especially on younger African sculptors, by whom he is greatly revered. Through his teaching at Polly Street and at the Jubilee Centre, as well as through his personal example of integrity, dedication and ability, he inspired and guided students who in their own right became outstanding artists, for example, Ezrom Legae, Leonard Matsoso and Louis Maqhubela From 1969 onward, he allied himself with Linda Givon, founder of The Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, where he exhibited regularly until his death in December 1988. Working with Givon also perpetuated his associations with his many friends of strong principles. Skotnes, Villa, Legae and later such peers from the Polly Street era as Leonard Matsoso, Durant Sihlali and David Koloane have all exhibited at The Goodman Gallery. Kumalo, Legae, and later Fikile (Magadlela) and Dumile (Feni) were among the leading exponents of a new Afrocentric art...

The bronze sculpture of a woman by Charles Rumsey is undated, but was created at a point in his career where he began to transition from realism to more modern, looser depictions of ...

Eugenie Gershoy (January 1, 1901 – May 8, 1986) was an American sculptor and watercolorist. Eugenie Gershoy was born in Krivoy Rog, Russia (Krivoi Rog, Ukraine) and emigrated to New York City in the United States as a child in 1903. Considered somewhat of a child prodigy, Gershoy was copying Old Master drawings at the age of 5. Her interest and talent in art was encouraged from a very young age. Aided by scholarships, she studied at the Art Students League under Alexander Stirling Calder, Leo Lentelli, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Boardman Robinson. Around this time, she created a group of portrait figurines of her fellow artists, including Arnold Blanch, Lucile Blanch, Raphael Soyer, William Zorach, Concetta Scaravaglione, and Emil Ganso, which were exhibited as a group at the Whitney Museum of American Art. At age 17, she was awarded the Saint-Gaudens Medal for fine draughtsmanship. Early in her career she became an active member of the Woodstock art colony. In Woodstock she experimented by sculpting in the profusion of indigenous materials that she found. Working with fieldstone, oak and chestnut, Gershoy created works based on classic formulae. As she became more interested in the dynamism of everyday life, she found that these materials and her idiom were too restrictive. By the time Gershoy came to Woodstock in 1921 her own individual artistic style was already evident in her sculptures. Eugenie Gershoy worked in stone, bronze, terracotta, plaster and papier-mache. Gershoy’s sculptures were mainly figurative in nature and many of her artist peers such as Carl Walters, Raphael and Moses Soyer, William Zorach and Lucille Blanch, became her subjects. Eugenie Gershoy’s works on paper should not be overlooked. She was the winner of the Gaudens Medal for Fine Draughtsmanship at the tender age of 17. Gershoy married Jewish Romanian-born artist Harry Gottlieb. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, the pair kept a studio in Woodstock, New York. There, Gershoy was influenced by sculptor John Flanagan, who lived and worked nearby. From 1936 to 1939, Gershoy worked for the WPA Federal Art Project. She collaborated with Max Spivak on murals for the children's recreation room of the Queens Borough Public Library in Astoria, New York. She developed a mixture of wheat paste, plaster, and egg tempera, which she used in polychrome papier-mâché sculptures; she was the only New York sculptor to work in polychrome at this time. She also designed cement and mosaic sculptures of animals and figures to be placed in New York City playgrounds. Alongside others employed by the FAP, she participated in a sit-down strike in Washington, DC, to advocate for better pay and improved working conditions for the projects' artists. Gershoy's first solo exhibition was held at the Robinson Gallery in New York in 1940. She moved to San Francisco in 1942, and began teaching ceramics at the California School of Fine Arts in 1946. In 1950, she studied at the artists' colony at Yaddo. Gershoy traveled extensively throughout her life. She visited England and France in the early 1930s, and worked in Paris in 1951. She traveled to Mexico and Guatemala in the late 1940s, and also toured Africa, India, and the Orient in 1955. In 1977, Gershoy dedicated a sculpture to Audrey McMahon, who was actively involved in the creation of the Federal Art Project and served as its regional director in New York, in recognition of the work McMahon provided struggling artists in the 1930s. Gershoy's work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Her papers are held at Syracuse University Grant Arnold introduced her to lithography in 1930 and Gershoy depicted many scenes of Woodstock artists and their daily activities through this medium. From 1942 to 1966 Gershoy lived and painted in San Francisco where she taught at the San Francisco Art Institute. She traveled extensively, filling sketchbooks with scenes of Mexico, France, Spain, Africa and India. During her later years Eugenie Gershoy returned to New York City and concentrated on numerous well received exhibitions. Her last exhibition in at Sid Deutsch Gallery included many of the sculptures that were later exhibited in the Fletcher Gallery. John Russell, former chief critic of fine arts for the New York Times, writes about the 1986 Sid Deutsch exhibition: “As Eugenie Gershoy won the Saint-Gaudens Medal for fine draftsmanship as long ago as 1914 and since 1967 has had 15 papier-mache portrait figures suspended from the ceiling of the lobby of the Hotel Chelsea, she must be ranked as a veteran of the New York scene. Her present exhibition includes not only the high-spirited papier-mache sculptures for which she is best known but a group of small portraits of artists, mostly dating from the 30’s, that is strongly evocative.” Eugenie Gershoy is an artist to take note of for several reasons. She was a woman who received great awards and recognition during a time when most female artists were struggling to hold their own against their male counterparts. As a young girl she won a scholarship to the Arts Student League where she met Hannah Small...

A masterful testament to the timeless allure of the ocean, "Dreams of the Sea" is a singular bronze sculpture by Ukrainian artist Alex Radionov. Crafted in a unique, contemporary sty...

Mark Kostabi - Divine Embrace - Bronze sculpture Divine Embrace is a unique bronze sculpture by renowned artist Mark Kostabi, featuring two faceless figures in an intimate embrace...

"Untitled" bronze sculpture of a female nude by artist Felipe Castañeda. Inscribed F. Castañeda 1984 P/A on base.

Artist/Designer: Victor Salmones (Mexican, 1937-1989) Marking(s); notes: signed, marking(s); Artist Proof Country of origin; materials: Mexico; bronze, glass Dimensions: 30″h, 42″dia...

Ruth Bloch, Bronze sculpture, Kiss, 2 figures, classic theme , romantic sculpture, minimalist sculpture

Reg Butler Seated Nude Numbered, 1/9 Bronze 3 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches Base: 3 1/2 x 3 inches Reg Butler was born April 28, 1913, in Buntingford, in the United Kingdom. In 1933, ...