Nancy Graves Sculptures
American, 1939-1995
A sculptor of animals and American Indian shamanistic objects, filmmaker, and painter, Nancy Graves had a highly successful and varied career, primarily in New York City. In her abstract work, she united her interest in anthropology, totemic objects, cartography, and biomorphic shapes. She was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and became a graduate of Vassar College in 1961 and then Yale University's School of Art and Architecture. Graves won a Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship for painting, allowing her to spend a year in Paris in 1964-65. In the next few years, she traveled in North Africa and the Near East and lived and worked in Florence, Italy where she did her first signature work, which was sculptures of life-size Bactrian camels.
In 1966, she moved to New York City and further experimented with ways to produced these sculptures by building wood and steel armatures, covering them with skins of animal embryos, stuffing the skins with polyurethane to form humps, and tinting the skins with oil paints.
In 1968, she had her first New York one-woman show at the Graham Gallery followed by her second one-woman show at the Whitney Museum in 1969. Both exhibitions featured her camels.
In 1972 at the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art, she made sculpture suggestive of Indian objects such as bones, skins, and feathers and added also steel rods to this motif for other exhibitions.
As a filmmaker, she has had showings in film festivals in London, New York, and Boston.
Source: Charlotte Rubinstein, "American Women Artists"to
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Artist: Nancy Graves
Rope Trap /// Abstract Expressionist Female Nancy Graves Huge Metal Sculpture NY
By Nancy Graves
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: Nancy Graves (American, 1939-1995)
Title: "Rope Trap"
*Titled, signed, and dated by Graves (inscribed into the metal) on red cylinder lower right
Year: 1985
Medium: Original ...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Nancy Graves Sculptures
Materials
Bronze, Metal
Famed sculptor Nancy Graves unique signed patinated bronze sculpture NY Award
By Nancy Graves
Located in New York, NY
Nancy Graves
New York State Governor's Arts Award, 1988
Bronze, polychrome patina and baked enamel on base with Award plaque
10 1/4 × 7 × 10 1/4 inches
Hand signed and dated with inc...
Category
1980s Abstract Expressionist Nancy Graves Sculptures
Materials
Bronze, Enamel
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Nancy Graves sculptures for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic Nancy Graves sculptures available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Nancy Graves in bronze, metal, paint and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 1980s and is mostly associated with the abstract style. Not every interior allows for large Nancy Graves sculptures, so small editions measuring 7 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Gino Miles, Varujan Boghosian, and Liz Sweibel. Nancy Graves sculptures prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $18,000 and tops out at $120,000, while the average work can sell for $69,000.