Posts Tagged ‘plaster’

Artist of the moment……George Segal

{ March 29, 2014 @ 1:27 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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George Segal is an American artist who works with the figure often with cast paper. George Segal was born in New York City in the year 1924. For his artistic education Segal received great instruction attending the Pratt Institute, Cooper Union College, and graduating from New York University.

Segal also went on to post graduate studies earning a M.F.A. from Rutgers University.

A major breakthrough for the artist was a work titled “Man Sitting at a Table.” This work was significant because it gave a more complete look as before the artist was working with a certain body part such as the hands or torso. The artist would later do such works as a woman looking in a mirror or lying naked on a bed. Much more complete and interesting than a painting.

If you enjoy this artist and style be sure and check out my post on Duane Hanson. Hanson did a wonderful job of capturing people in sculpture, complete with time period dress and hairstyle. He is my favorite when it comes to this genre.

Price range information: Segal worked in many mediums including printmaking, painting, and sculpting with plaster, bronze, and wood. Prices range from $3,000 to $600,000.

George Segal passed away in 2000.

 

In this clip a brief bio on George Segal:

I enjoy the process the artist uses to capture the human figure!

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Artist of the moment….Nicolas Africano…

{ May 12, 2013 @ 1:50 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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The American  artist Nicholas Africano was among the biggest names in the art world in the 1980s. Africano was born in 1948.  He came to fame by his three dimensional sculptures that were done in plaster and later in glass.

For his sculpture work he often uses his wife for his muse.

Included in prominent art collections including the Met, the Whitney,and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

As you can see in this clip, assistants cast his work in glass. Africano first sculpts the works in wax, then assistants do the work in glass. He does enjoy varying the colors of the glass to invoke certain feelings in the viewer.

 

Price range information: The artist’s sculptures in glass and plaster range $5,000 to $25,000.

Was first a poet, then did works of art to accompany his poetry.

This artist is very unique in that he has been forgotten by the art world and its trendy style. He has stayed true to his own vision and as a result is a reasonably priced museum quality artist.

If you read more about this artist you will find he seems to have very negative views on the world and life in general, so I will ignore those and lets just celebrate his creativity!

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Artist of the moment…George Segal….

{ March 2, 2013 @ 1:06 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Lets take a closer look at the great American sculptor George Segal. Segal was born in New York city in the year 1924. Segal is associated with the Pop Art movement.

Segal was married to his wife Helen from 1946 until his death in 2000.

For most of his life Segal lived on as chicken farm. The farm was located in New Jersey.
Segal lived on the farm from the early 1950s until he died in 2000.

The artist was most prolific as a photographer during the later years of his life.
Segal was important to the career of the artist John Cage. Cage was not only a
superb minimalist painter, but also a composer and song writer.

Segal had many art events at his farm, they were known as happenings.

In 1999 Segal was given the National Medal of the Arts.

For his collegiate studies Segal attended many well known art institutions including
Pratt, Cooper Union, New York University, and Rutgers studying art and earning a
teaching degree.

Price range info: Larger works such as Chance Meeting can break the
$600,000 mark. Segal was prolific and many works from small works
in plaster, serigraphs, pastel,and etchings can be found for less than four
thousand dollars.

In this clip we  see a wonderful work about people standing in line waiting for food in the midst of the Great Depression. Though the viewer might think that the people are sad or depressed, like a Kathe Kollwitz etching, the  people seem just to be waiting patiently.

Like the great Andy Warhol Segal enjoyed taking photographs. In this clip we see some of his work with the lens.

I love the way Segal is able to capture the essence of the person, similar to one of my favorite sculptors Duane Hanson. Hanson was able to capture an exact moment in time with people from the 60s and 70s. Awesome likeness with vintage clothing. Here is a great example of Duane Hanson’s style with a self portrait of himself featuring a model. Hanson lived from 1925 until 1996, I have blogged about him before.

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In this clip we visit some more sculptures by George Segal and interpret the moods of the characters. That is what I enjoy most about the artist, you can’t tell the mood of the character from a distance!

Segal was known mainly as casting works with plaster. He also did some great work with cast paper and vacuum formed plastic. Very unique interpretations!

In this clip we visit a sculpture installation on a college campus dealing with circus acrobats by George Segal.