Well Hall Groat Senior didn’t have any good paintings of food so I will push ahead and start a new series dealing with artists who represent the human form in their art.
low price range: $60,000
high price range: $200,000
On line and land based galleries: Life-casting.com featuring many sculptors. http://www.artmolds.com/ali/halloffame/john_deandrea.htm
Louis K. Meisel Gallery in New York City. http://www.meiselgallery.com/LKMG/artist/images.php?aid=34
Below is a clip showing works by the first two artists I will be profiling in this section about the figure in art. John DeAndrea and the late Duane Hanson will be my first two subjects.
This artist is known for his fantastic life size bronzes of women, most are nude. Many times he enhances the human feel of his sculptures by painting the skin tones with oils.
Born in 1941 in Denver, Colorado.
Earned BFA at the University Colorado at Boulder. Started work for masters program at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He made friends with a student that was casting fiberglass to make kayaks. This forced the artist to look at sculpture differently and for it to become his medium of choice. He quit the graduate program and decided to move back to Denver, Colorado.
When the artist was first mastering his technique he cast the molds in vinyl and fiberglass and then finished them using automotive paints, this was the technique used to make the kayaks. Some of the people have a highly reflective quality to the skin, making them seem wet. Years later he switched to using latex acrylic paint and started producing the works we are familiar with today. He even uses real hair for the head to give extra detail into the artwork. He uses polyvinyl and polychromed bronzes.
First one person show was in New York City back in 1970.
Most of his works deal with the nude and very fit women. Some works show an artist who is clothed and a model who is nude. He uses such items as plastic, polyester, glass fiber, and gympsum.
Gained world wide attention for sculptures depicting people making love. These were thought provoking because it showed the difference between sex for men and women. For women that sex was highly emotional and that for men the act was more physical than emotional. He portrayed this idea very well.
Art critics compare his work to the Greeks, but I would argue DeAndrea makes subtle caricatures of the people making them more realistic than invented. If you were to see Michelangelo’s David walking down the street you would be surprised by his anatomy, its unlike a man you would see walking the streets. DeAndrea tries to capture the individual characteristics of a person sometimes exaggerating skin tone, long legs, and large breasts. Duane Hanson worked with people that were ugly or at least very far from what passes at beautiful in any modern day culture.
Has works in museums in Scotland, Australia, and Mississippi in the United States.
As far as sculpture is concerned this artist will always be one of my favorites. Dolls are nice, but these works are life size. I love the attention to detail and lengths the artist goes to capture the moment and persona of each individual.
Happy painting!
D
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