Robert Holmes Art

William King (1925-2015). Reclining figure, ca. 1965. Cast and welded bronze, 7 x 9.5 x 5 inches. Unsigned. William King, a sculptor in a variety of materials whose human figures traced social attitudes through the last half of the 20th century, often poking sly and poignant fun at human follies and foibles, died on March 4 at his home in East Hampton, N.Y. He was 90. His death was confirmed by Scott Chaskey, who is married to Mr. King's stepdaughter, Megan Chaskey. 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. 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. Mr. King's work is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, among other places, and he had dozens of solo gallery shows in New York and elsewhere. But the comic element of his work probably caused his reputation to suffer. 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 critic Hilton Kramer, one of Mr. King's most ardent advocates, wrote in a 1970 essay accompanying a New York gallery exhibit that he was, "among other things, an amusing artist, and nowadays this can, at times, be almost as much a liability as an asset." A "preoccupation with gesture is the focus of King's sculptural imagination," Mr. Kramer wrote. "Everything that one admires in his work - the virtuoso carving, the deft handling of a wide variety of materials, the shrewd observation and resourceful invention - all this is secondary to the concentration on gesture. The physical stance of the human animal as it negotiates the social arena, the unconscious gait that the body assumes in making its way in the social medium, the emotion traced by the course of a limb, a torso, a head, the features of a face, a coiffure or a costume - from a keen observation of these materials King has garnered a large stock of sculptural images notable for their wit, empathy, simplicity and psychological precision." William Dickey King...

Rotazione Ascensoriale I , 1993 bronze sculpture h15 x 12.5 x 8 cm approx , ( including base ) , diameter Ø approx 13.5 cm limited edition , numbered: 15/70 signed dated and numbered...

Bronze Sculpture 'Bolas IV' by Carola Eggeling Abstract sculpture with beautiful curved lines. German bronze sculpture Bronze Patina Certific...

IBRAM LASSAW (Russian-American, 1913-2003), Sculptural pendant Gold plated bronze Signed verso Measurements: 2-7/8''h, 2-1/4''w. Ibram Lassaw was born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Russian Jewish émigré parents. After briefly living in Marseille, France, Naples, Italy Tunis, Malta, and Constantinople, Turkey his family settled in Brooklyn, New York, in 1921.His family settled in Brooklyn, New York. He became a US citizen in 1928. Ibram Lassaw, one of America's first abstract sculptors, was best known for his open-space welded sculptures of bronze, silver, copper and steel. Drawing from Surrealism, Constructivism, and Cubism, Lassaw pioneered an innovative welding technique that allowed him to create dynamic, intricate, and expressive works in three dimensions. As a result, he was a key force in shaping New York School sculpture.He first studied sculpture in 1926 at the Clay Club and later at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York. He made abstract paintings and drawings influenced by Kandinsky, Sophie Taeuber Arp, and other artists. He also attended the City College of New York. Lassaw’s encounter with avant-garde art in the International Exhibition of Modern Art (1926), organized by the Société Anonyme at the Brooklyn Museum, made a powerful impression on him. In the early 1930s he explored new materials and notions of open-space sculpture. The ideas of László Moholy-Nagy and Buckminster Fuller were important to him, and he knew the work of Julio González, Pablo Picasso, and the Russian Constructivists. After experimenting with plaster, rubber and wire, Lassaw began working with steel, which became a frequent medium for the artist, along with other metals. His work reflects the influence of Surrealist artists such as Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miro as well as American Modernist Alexander Calder.A pioneer of abstract sculpture in the United States, in 1936 Lassaw was a founding member of the organization American Abstract Artists. Between 1933 and 1942 he worked for various federal arts projects: the Public Works of Art Project, Civil Works Authority, and WPA, the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. In 1938 he produced his first welded work. He served with the U.S. Army, where he learned direct welding techniques. During the 1940s he experimented with cage constructions and with acrylic plastics, adding color to his sculptures by applying dye directly to their surfaces. In 1949 Lassaw was a founder of the Club, an informal discussion group of avant-garde artists that had developed from gatherings at his studio, on Eighth Street. During the mid-1930s, Lassaw worked briefly for the Public Works of Art Project cleaning sculptural monuments around New York City. He subsequently joined the WPA as a teacher and sculptor until he was drafted into the army in 1942. Lassaw's contribution to the advancement of sculptural abstraction went beyond mere formal innovation; his promotion of modernist styles during the 1930s did much to insure the growth of abstract art in the United States. He was one of the founding members of the American Abstract Artists group, and served as president of the American Abstract Artists organization from 1946 to 1949. In 1951, Samuel Kootz invited Lassaw to join his gallery in New York. He also had a summer gallery in Provincetown, MA. Lassaw had been summering in Provincetown since 1944, and in 1951 rented an apartment next door to the Kootz Gallery. Among the artists in the Kootz Gallery were Jean Arp, William Baziotes, Georges Braque, Jean Dubuffet, Herbert Ferber, Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, David Hare, Hans Hofmann, Fernand Leger, Georges Mathieu, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Soulages, and Maurice de Vlaminck. Lassaw is a sculptor who was a part of the New York School of Abstract expressionism during the 1940s and 1950s. Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, James Brooks, Willem de Kooning, and several other artists like Lassaw spent summers on the Southern Shore of Long Island. Lassaw spent summers on Long Island from 1955 until he moved there permanently in 1963. SELECT EXHIBITIONS 1961 International Exhibition of Modern Jewelry 1890–1961, organized by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1967 Exhibition of Jewelry by Painters and Sculptors, organized for circulation by MoMA 1973 Jewelry...

ARNALDO POMODORO Double Sided Gold Plated Medallion, 1985 Bronze with Gold Patina 2 7/10 × 2 7/10 × 3/10 inches Limited Edition of 500 Signed by artist with incised signature; Stampe...

This exceptional Mid-Century Modern bronze sculpture, titled “Chama” (circa 1966), was created by acclaimed American artist Eduardo Arcenio Chavez (1917–1995). Resting on its origina...

Henry Moore, Three Piece Reclining Figure Bronze Conceived 1963, cast 1977 Stamped with signature and edition to base Edition 5/9 Dominion Gallery placard to underside Henry Moore F...

Bronze Sculpture 'Bolas II' by Carola Eggeling Abstract sculpture with beautiful curved lines. German bronze sculpture Bronze Polished Certificate of authenticity Numbered and sign...

Jean Arp Château des Oiseaux Bronze Signed "Arp" Edition 5/5 Provenance: Sidney Janis Gallery, New York Conceived in 1963, cast in bronze in an edition of 5 between 1967 and 1969. J...

"Sisters" Bronze Sculpture 14" x 6" x 4" inch by Sarkis Tossonian Sarkis Tossoonian was born in Alexandria in 1953. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts/Sculpture in 1979. H...

American, b. 1961 Jane DeDecker’s energetic and dynamic bronze sculptures serve as a reflection of her own life experiences and those of her closely-knit family. Her twelve nieces and nephews are the primary source of her inspiration, though DeDecker’s sculptures are not portraits. In fact, her loose style leaves her viewers with room for interpretation, so as to see their own lives within her sculptures. This imprecision, combined with her unique ability to capture specific moments to which each viewer can relate on a personal level, regardless of age, give DeDecker’s work a timeless quality that spans generations. DeDecker began her artistic training as a painter at the University of Northern Colorado, until a professor, noticing her joy in the portrayal of shapes and forms, suggested she try her hand at sculpture. Taking his advice, DeDecker went on to study at Gobelins School of Tapestry in...

A graceful metal sculpture created from altered/ transformed materials, Urban Transformation, industrial steel against a craggy, textured, bark-like bronze elements. ...