Catalogue Preview - Masters of Sculpture

Bill

Hodges

Gallery

Masters of Sculpture African Americans, et. al.

Richmond Barthé (1901 - 1989) Richmond Barthé is a pioneer of American Sculpture. He showed artistic prowess from an early age and attended the Art Institute of Chicago to study painting - despite not having completed high school as a youth due to illness and work. While at the Art Institute, he enrolled in a sculpture class taught by German artist Charles Schroeder. This class was pivotal to Barthé, and it realigned his trajectory; shifting his focus from painting to sculpture.

Following his graduation from the institute, Barthé moved to New York in 1930. With a fellowship from the Julius Rosenwald Fund, he established his studio in Harlem. However, soon after, he found it reasonable to relocate to Greenwich Village for the convenience of many of his clients. There, he was exposed to the downtown artists, and an abundance of inspiration; which he translated through his work. Barthé would often sculpt the forms of dancers and performers from memory when he could not afford a sitting model.

Growing tired of the violence and chaos of New York, Barthé moved to Jamaica in 1947; where he was well-received, yet soon driven out, again, by violence due to local political conflicts. In the mid-1960s, Barthé emigrated to Europe.

He lived in Switzerland, Italy, and Spain for five years before returning to America, and settling in Pasadena, California.

Barthé was the winner of many awards, including: the 1930 Rosenwald Fellowship, the 1940 Guggenheim Fellowship, an induction into the National Sculpture Society in 1945, an election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters that same year, as well as an award from President Carter in 1980.

In the final years of his life, Barthé prepared and archived his artwork. One of his most recognized American public pieces is Rose McClendon, a 42-inch sculpture installed at Fallingwater, a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, located in Western Pennsylvania. Barthé’s other works are in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; and several other museums and institutions. __ Maasai Warrior is a small yet striking cast bronze bust of an African male from the Maasai tribe, inhabiting both Tanzania and Kenya. His hair is styled in three dreadlocks and his dark angular features are sharp, strong, and unique. With high cheekbones and fierce black eyes, Maasai Warrior radiates elegance, power, and intensity.

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Maasai Warrior, 1933 (Cast 1986) Cast Bronze on Marble Base Edition 10 of 25 6 ½ x 3 ¾ x 4 ¼ in. (16.5 x 9.6 10.8 cm) Base: 1 ⅛ x 4 ¼ x 4 ¼ in. (2.9 x 10.8 x 10.8 cm) Total: 7 ⅝ x 4 ¼ x 4 ¼ in. (19.4 x 10.8 x 10.8 cm) Signed, Dated and Numbered: Barthé 33-86 © 10/25

Provenance: Private Collection; New York, NY Literature: Margaret Rose Vendryes. Barthé, A Life in Sculpture. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2008. p. 166 (plaster model illustrated and titled: African Man) Samella Lewis. Barthé, His Art in Life. N.p.: Unity Works, 2009. pp. 96-97

Barthé 5

Camille Billops (1933 - 2019) African American multi-talented artist and filmmaker, Camille Billops, worked in a variety of disciplines, but is principally recognized today for her documentary film-making, and contribution as an archivist of African American art and culture. Billops was born on August 12, 1933, in Los Angeles, California. She studied at Los Angeles State College during the 1960s major in Special Education, and later graduated with a B.A. from California State University, followed by an M.F.A. from the City College of New York in 1975.

Billops’ early career focused on sculpture; although she occasionally worked with painting, ceramics, printmaking, and photography. By the 1980s, she established herself as a filmmaker through documentaries. Notably, her own family became the subject of many of her films. Of the most well-known of these films is Suzanne, Suzanne (1982), a film about drug addiction within her own extended family; and Finding Christa (1991), which explores the artist’s reunion with her abandoned daughter. The latter touched on taboo subjects around issues of motherhood, the African American family, and trauma. In 1992, Finding Christa was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival. This film stands as Billops’ most recognized and acclaimed controversial work.

Billops’ legacy extends beyond her artistic practice, to include the role of archivist of African American art and culture. In 1968, she established, with partner James Hatch (a scholar of African American theater), the HatchBillops Collection of African American literature in Manhattan (currently housed at Emory University). Billops’ artwork is in the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA; Harold A and Ann R Sorgenti of Contemporary African American Art, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA; Museum of Fine Art, Boston, MA; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, NC; the Petrucci Family, Union Township, NJ; Photographers’ Gallery, London, UK; and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; among many others. __ Billops transfers her colorful, expressive, almost caricaturish paintings of people interacting in a non-euclidean space onto the surface of a large black ceramic bowl of her creation, Title Unknown. This unique painting resembles a reel, with no beginning and no end, no left or right side. Inspired by African art and its aesthetics of color, Billops paints in a playful, almost childlike manner, similar to Matisse and Picasso. With a pastel palette and in her raw and distinct style, Billops paints figures of black and white people interacting in an outdoor context of land and occasional trees, surrounded by a black background, the bowl. Billops illustrates loosely drawn forms with black contours colored in flat washes of paint on its surface. The brushstrokes are visible, and the shapes are arranged like puzzle pieces. Although the foreground and background seem to merge as one flat surface of colored shapes, this image has depth. As evident in her depictions of the small trees and houses, Billops uses scale to create, distance, and depict the vastness of land. The contrast between the background and foreground colors brings light to the images.

She creates a boundary between the interior and exterior of the bowl with yellow brush strokes along its inner rim.

Thus, producing a dance between light and dark, balancing the composition and its colors.

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Title Unknown, 1993 Ceramic Bowl 14 ½ x 17 ½ x 17 ½ in. (36.8 x 44.5 x 44.5 cm) Signed, Dated and Inscribed on Bottom: C. Billops 10/93 n.y.c. No Pb

Provenance: Acquired Directly from the Artist

Billops 9

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827 - 1875) Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux was born in Valenciennes, France, as the son of a mason. One of Carpeaux’s best-known works today is Pourquoi Naître Esclave (Why Born Enslaved), first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1869.

At an early age, Carpeaux enrolled at the Académie de Peinture, Sculpture, et Architecture in Valenciennes, and after his family’s relocation to Paris in 1838, he continued his studies at the École Gratuite de Dessin (or Petite École), until 1843. These two schools were open to instructing talented youths like Carpeaux as part of a government policy to encourage the application of the fine arts to industry. In 1844, Carpeaux was accepted for study at the renowned École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Afterward, he studied with Romantic sculptor, François Rude. In 1850, he abandoned Rude’s studio for that of Francisque Duret, a teacher at the school under whose tutelage Carpeaux achieved an honorable mention for his Achilles Wounded in the Heel (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes) in the Prix de Rome competition of the same year. This was followed by a second-place prize for his figure Philoctetes on Lemnos. In 1854, he earned the Grand Prix de Rome for his sculpture, Hector and His Son Astyanax (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes).

Towards the end of his career, he enjoyed the favor of Napoleon III, and could take his pick of portrait commissions from the leaders of the Second Empire. Carpeaux passed away in Courbevoie, France, on October 12, 1875. __ “A later shift in taste toward a more free naturalistic style is exemplified by the work of Second Empire sculptor JeanBaptiste Carpeaux.”1 “Created following the American emancipation, and almost two decades after the abolition of slavery in the French Atlantic, Pourquoi Naître Esclave! (1868) was shaped by the enduring popularity of antislavery imagery, the development of nineteenth-century ethnographic theories of racial difference, and France’s colonialist fascination with Africa.”2 Pourquoi Naître Esclave! (Why Born a Slave!) Challenges the traditional western standards of beauty in sculpture, and transcends the characteristics of the medium itself. This woman of color glares with piercing eyes into the distance in contemplation, defiance, and confrontation. Her facial expression is of strength as it exhibits a wide range of emotions. Although cast in hard and durable materials such as terracotta, and cast bronze, Carpeaux was able to capture the weightlessness of her hair, the smoothness of her skin, the softness of her clothes, and the beauty of her African features.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art featured a show around a bust of the same mold titled Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast, 2022; the first exhibition at to examine Western sculpture in relation to the histories of transatlantic slavery, colonialism, and empire.2

1 Cybele Gontar, “Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827–1875).” Metmuseum.org (Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004).

2 Overview “Fictions of Emancipation: Carpeaux Recast.” Metmuseum.org (Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022).

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Pourquoi Naître Esclave!, 1868 Cast Bronze 13 ¾ x 8 ¾ x 7 in. (35.1 x 22.2 x 17.8 cm) Titled: POURQUI NAÎTRE ESCLAVE Signed and Dated on Right: JB Carpeaux 1868

Provenance: Private Collection; Glasgow, United Kingdom

Carpeaux 19

Willie Cole (1955 - ) Self-described as an “archaeological ethnographic Dadaist” with the intent to “reveal the life force in inanimate objects,” Willie Cole salvages and repurposes objects, to refashion and reposition our perspective of the ordinary and the mundane.

Willie Cole is a New Jersey-born artist working in the disciplines of painting, drawing, sculpture, and conceptual art. Trained as a graphic designer with a background that includes theatre, music, and television, Cole’s practice is an exploration of postmodern eclecticism and identity, with a focus on African and African American experiences in art.

Under the artistic influence of writer and poet Amiri Baraka, Cole attended the Boston University School of Fine Arts, and received his B.F.A from the School of Visual Arts, New York. Later, he continued his education by attending classes at the Art Students League of New York. During the early 1980s, he formed the non-profit Works Gallery in Newark. His practice reached a decisive phase in the late 1980s, after receiving the award of artist in residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem (1988-1989).

Cole’s unique works have been included in many solo and group exhibitions, and in museums across the United States. They have been collected by more than 30 museums throughout the country, including Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; Museum of Modern Art, NY; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; among many others. __ A re-rendering of a Black lawn jockey statue whose title, Elegba (pp. 25-27), refers to a Yoruba deity and is a fascinating example of the artist’s thematic interest in capturing Africanist and African American canonical symbolism in contemporary art. Black lawn jockey statues were used during the Civil War to provide directional signals to runaway slaves as they journeyed toward the Canadian border. Due to its innocuous appearance that capitalizes on the servile archetype of Sambo figurines, the Black lawn jockey was a subversive tool for the Underground Railroad.

Cole uses cowrie shells to adorn the figure’s beaded vestments. Interestingly, cowrie shells symbolize wealth, fertility, and protection when traveling across stormy waters. In this work, Cole masterfully uses medium and symbolism to produce a sculpture that engages with the complex history of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

Mother and Child #1 (p. 28), Mother And Child #2 (pp. 28-29), and Downtown Goddess (p. 29) are African-inspired sculptures of women, constructed of shoes that function as brushstrokes. Cole upcycles old shoes by assembling them like a jigsaw puzzle to configure visually alluring forms. He then captures every detail and texture by casting them in bronze. This process transforms the transient delicate, pungent, and disposable lives of worn shoes to a renewed existence as visually appealing, solid, and durable sculptures of bronze that would live through centuries.

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Elegba (North America), 2000 Papier-mâché, Beads, Cowrie Shells on Wooden Base 35 ½ x 13 ½ x 13 ¾ in. (90.2 x 34.3 x 34.9 cm) Signed and Dated on Bottom: 10/2K WILLIE COLE Provenance: Alexander and Bonin; New York, NY Private Collection (2007) Exhibition History: (Self) Portraits, 2 June - 27 July 2001. Alexander and Bonin, New York, NY Sources & Metamorphoses, 4 February - 4 April 2004. Tampa Museum of Art, Tampa, FL Literature: Montclair Art Museum. Anxious Objects: Willie Cole’s Favorite Brands. Montclair, 2016. pp. 64-65

Cole 25

40 Edwards

Culture, 1988 Welded Stainless Steel 61 x 37 x 18 in. (155 x 94 x 45.7 cm) Partially Titled and Dated, on Underside of Circular Surface: Cultur 88 Provenance: Collection of Joseph and Blanche Blank Exhibition History: Introspectives: Contemporary Art by Americans and Brazilians of African Descent, 1989.

The California Afro-American Museum, Los Angeles, CA, and Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY Literature: The California Afro-American Museum. Introspectives: Contemporary Art by Americans and Brazilians of African Descent.

Los Angeles, 1989. p. 70

Edwards 41

54 Hunt

Inside and Outside the Frame, 2006-2020 Cast and Welded Bronze 77 x 36 ¼ x 30 ½ in. (195.6 x 92.1 x 77.5 cm)

Provenance: Acquired Directly from the Artist (2022) Exhibition History: Richard Hunt: Scholar’s Rock or Stone of Hope or Love of Bronze, 17 September - 16 November 2020 & 11 February - 20 September 2021.

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Hunt 55

John Tarrell Scott (1940 - 2007) John Tarrell Scott is an American Artist best known for his large-scale woodcut prints and colorful kinetic sculptures that draw upon African American traditions and themes.

Scott was born on June 30, 1940, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana with a Bachelor of Art degree in Fine Arts; and later received his MFA in sculpture and printmaking from Michigan State University, in 1965. Since then, he has been an instructor at Xavier for 40 years, where he taught painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpting, paper-making, bronze casting, and calligraphy. In 1992, he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship Grant, which he applied towards building a larger studio. After gaining attention among artists and collectors, Scott received honorary degrees from multiple universities, including Loyola University of Louisiana, Tulane University in New Orleans, Madonna College of Michigan, and Xavier University of Louisiana.

Scott was the subject of a major retrospective exhibition at the New Orleans Museum of Art in 2005 titled Circle Dance: The Art of John T. Scott. Over the years, Scott was also commissioned to create and install several public works throughout the city of New Orleans, including Spirit Gates at the DeSaix Boulevard traffic circle in the Seventh Ward and River Spirit at Woldenberg Park along the Mississippi River.

Scott’s work is shown and collected by several institutions, notably: the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans, Louisiana; and the Fine Art Society, London. __ Duet: Past and Future, this delicate and colorful kinetic sculpture is a strong example of Scott’s painted kinetic metal works. Its seemingly simple, yet complex, slender forms are inspired by the “diddley bow”, a string instrument from West African culture,1 and balanced by physics. These kinetic sculptures served as the basis for his large-scale public commissions, including “Spirit Gates” at the New Orleans Museum of Art and “River Spirit” at Woldenberg Park in New Orleans.1

1 Blackartstory.org Editors. “Profile: John T. Scott (1940-2007).” Black Art Story, September 8, 2020.

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Duet: Past and Future, 1985 Painted Metal and Wood 42 x 15 ½ x 13 in. (106.7 x 39.4 x 33 cm) Signed and Dated: John T. Scott 1985

Provenance: Private Collection; Jamaica Plain, MA

Scott 61

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