I was drifting among the modern design furniture at one of my favorite auction houses this week and wasn’t finding much that whispered “come hither.”
Until I turned a corner and ran smack into – not literally – a tin rooster. It appeared to be almost as tall as me and standing there, looked as if it had absentmindedly wandered into the wrong room. This 3 feet of tin and bright paint – handcrafted as it was – was stuck over in a corner, almost hidden by the good stuff. That seemed an appropriate place for it.
Intrigued by this strange creature among these pricey items, I started to look around the room for others like it – out of place, out of time, strangers in the wrong flock. The unusual and the different.
Here’s what I found and what I learned about them:
Norman Annis bronze lion sculpture
The auction sheet described it as “surreal,” and that it surely was. The lion’s back left hip rose slight above the rest of its body, as if it were some arthritic appendage. Its head was abnormally large and it had no feet. It was about 1 1/2 feet tall and 2 feet wide. The sculpture was signed by Annis, an art professor at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania from 1960 to 1978, and from 1989 to 1999. He was known for a 1970 sculpture erected on campus of President Eisenhower leaning against a stone fence on the battlefield at Gettysburg. Eisenhower settled in the town after leaving the White House. Annis also designed the college’s presidential medallion and chain. The sculpture sold last year at another auction house for $322.
Leonard Nelson soldered copper & steel wire sculpture
This piece was huge, stretching more than 5 feet wide and 4 feet long across a wall. Inside the wire cage were colored and clear stones of various sizes and shapes. To be appreciated, it would need its own room in your home.
Nelson was among the first generation of the New York Abstract Expressionists of the likes of Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko, according to one noted art historian and critic, but he was also the “least appreciated.” Disenchanted with the New York art scene, he moved to Philadelphia in 1950, where he taught at the Moore College of Art, and produced his bold and experimental paintings and sculptures. He incorporated “found objects” into his welded sculptures, and also became noted for his printmaking.
Mano Gonzalez brass sculpture of a human fish with stone eyes
This piece was probably the most unusual. I had breezed right past it during my first walk-through, but this time it stopped me. It was a small piece compared to the other ‘unusuals’ I had spotted: it was only a foot wide and tall. I could find nothing about the artist, though. This signed piece would definitely spark a conversation sitting there on your tabletop.
Welded brass and copper rising sun fire screen
The auction house described this piece – which was 2 feet tall and 3 feet wide – as having “Kepenyes-style imagery and technique.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but the piece looked like Medusa with her snake-hair to me. I found a Pal Kepenyes, a sculptor and jewelry artist. He was born in Hungary, imprisoned for his activism in the Hungarian revolution in the 1950s, and left the country for Acapulco, Mexico, in the 1960s. He produced both small and large sculptures along with his jewelry. As I looked at the auction piece closely, it did mimic his style.
Fernando Botero-style bronze nude
Another piece in the style of a famous sculptor. This unmarked sculpture depicted a very heavy-set woman and it, too, was large: 4 ½ feet tall and 2 feet of solid bronze. Botero is a Latin American sculptor, painter and draftsman known for the very large, very rotund people in his works. And this piece fit perfectly in his style. He produced a series of paintings and drawings in 2005 about abuses in the Iraq war.
Bronze and brass sculpture of a gazelle head
This horns of this unmarked piece were expansive as a bird in flight. They stretched to 2 feet, and the piece itself was just as tall and impressive – if you’re into gazelles.
Curtis Jere brass sculpture of a bird in flight
I actually liked this 1971 signed sculpture, which looked like an eagle in flight. It was simply but dramatically done with very clean lines, standing at 2 ½ feet tall and wide. Curtis Jere pieces are the creation of a company called Artisan House, founded in 1964 by Jerry Fels and Kurt Freiler. The company is known for its hand-made metal wall sculptures, but it also produced other pieces in various media.
