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Max Kalish Figurative Sculptures

American, Lithuanian, 1891-1945
Born in Poland March 1, 1891, figurative sculptor Max Kalish came to the United States in 1894, his family settling in Ohio. A talented youth, Kalish enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art as a fifteen-year-old, receiving a first-place award for modeling the figure during studies with Herman Matzen. Kalish went to New York City following graduation, studying with Isidore Konti and Herbert Adams for the next two years. In 1912, Kalish studied with Paul Bartlett at the Academie Colarossi in Paris, France. In 1913, he continued his studies with Jean Antoine Injalbert at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The financial support of his brother, family and friends had enabled Kalish to travel to Europe. But the money ran out and, though Kalish exhibited two portrait busts in the 1913 Paris Salon, he was forced to return to America, where he worked on the Column of Progress for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, in San Francisco, California, with his former teacher, Isidore Konti. Back in Cleveland, he worked on portrait commissions of two United States Senators and the Mayor. In the Army by 1916, Kalish sculpted a series of bronze, one-third-life-size figures of solders. In 1920, he was back in Paris, where he would begin a life-long practice of spending half the year. In 1921, he sculpted his first laborer, “The Stoker”, a genre for which he would be best known, using as a model, a Cleveland blast furnace worker. In Paris in 1922, the sculptures of laborers by Belgian artist Constantine Meunier (1831-1905) cemented Kalish’s desire to sculpt workers. Kalish won first prize for four sculptures three laborers — in 1925 at the Cleveland Artists and Craftsmen exhibition, one of which a marble nude torso was acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art. This prize and purchase accelerated Kalish’s career. In 1928, he received a commission from the City of Cleveland for a twelve-foot-high bronze sculpture of Abraham Lincoln delivering the Gettysburg Address. It stands today in front of the west entrance of the Board of Education on East 6th Street. Living and working in New York City in 1932, he was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1933. He later became a member of the National Sculpture Society. At the outset of World War II, Kalish was commissioned by the Museum of American History to sculpt forty-eight bronze figures — one-third-life-size — of those involved in the war effort, including President Roosevelt, his cabinet and other important people. He lived to see the work completed, though afflicted by cancer from which he died on March 18, 1945 in New York City. The sculpture of Max Kalish was included in the 1997 exhibition in Berkeley, California, “When Artists Became Workers: The People’s Art Movement of the ’30s and ’40s”, at the Judah L. Magnes Museum.
(Biography provided by WOLFS)
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Artist: Max Kalish
Pair of Miner Bookends
By Max Kalish
Located in Greenwich, CT
Max Kalish was an important and highly collected American sculptor desired for his depictions of the working man. Here we see a miner taking a break. Kalish was adept at conveying ...
Category

1920s Academic Max Kalish Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Nude Walking, Early 20th Century Bronze Sculpture, Cleveland School Artist
By Max Kalish
Located in Beachwood, OH
Max Kalish (American, 1891-1945) Nude Walking, 1930 Bronze Signed and dated on base 17 x 9 x 4 inches Born in Poland March 1, 1891, figurative sculptor Max Kalish came to the United...
Category

1930s American Modern Max Kalish Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

"Road Builder" 20th Century Modern WPA Labor Bronze WPA Depression-Era Sculpture
By Max Kalish
Located in New York, NY
Max Kalish The Road Builder inscribed M. KALISH 23, with Meroni-Radice foundry mark, on top of base bronze with dark brown patina, on an ebonized rectangular plinth Height: 13 1/8 in...
Category

1920s American Realist Max Kalish Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Harmony, 20th century bronze & green marble base, nude man and woman with lyre
By Max Kalish
Located in Beachwood, OH
Max Kalish (American, 1891-1945) Harmony, c. 1930 Bronze with green marble base Incised signature on right upper side of base 14 x 9 x 5 inches, excluding base 17 x 10 x 8 inches, including base Born in Poland March 1, 1891, figurative sculptor Max Kalish came to the United States in 1894, his family settling in Ohio. A talented youth, Kalish enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art as a fifteen-year-old, receiving a first-place award for modeling the figure during studies with Herman Matzen. Kalish went to New York City following graduation, studying with Isidore Konti...
Category

1930s American Modern Max Kalish Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Marble, Bronze

Barge Toiler -Mid 20th Century Modern WPA Labor Plaster Depression-Era Sculpture
By Max Kalish
Located in New York, NY
"Barge Toiler" by Max Kalish is a Mid 20th Century modern Depression-Era sculpture from his Labor series. The WPA era work is made of plaster. Max Kalish (1891 – 1945) Barge Toiler...
Category

1930s American Modern Max Kalish Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Plaster

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Industrial Machine Age American Scene WPA Mid 20th Century 1939 SF World's Fair HAIG PATIGIAN (American/Armenian, 1876-1950) Aeronautics Pediments Two Plaster Casts, c. 1930s each 13.25 x 14.75 x 6 inches It's possible these moquettes were created for the 1939 World's Fair, the Golden Gate International Exhibition in San Francisco. Provenance: Private Collection of Lois M. Wright, Author of "A Catalogue of the Life Works of Haig Patigian, San Francisco Sculptor, 1876-1950),” 1967 Loan to Oakland Museum of California (Oakland, CA) BIO Haig Patigian is noted for his classical works, which are especially numerous in public venues in San Francisco, California. Patigian was born in Van, Armenia, which at that time was under Turkish rule. Haig was the son of Avedis and Marine Patigian, both teachers in the American Mission School there. He and his older brother showed an aptitude for art early on and were encouraged by their parents. Their father himself had taken up the new hobby of photography. The 1880s were harsh times, however, for many Armenians under an oppressive rule by the Turkish government. Many people were fleeing to the safety of the United States. Suspicious Turkish authorities accused his father of photographing city structures for the Russian government, and in 1888 he fled for his life to America. Haigs father made his way to Fresno, California, and began life anew as a ranch hand. Within two years he sent for his wife, as well as Haig, his three sisters and brother, and in 1891 the Patigians made the journey from Armenia. Haigs father, an industrious man, worked on various farms, and eventually bought his own ranch and vineyard. It was among fertile farmland of Fresno that Haig grew up. Young Haigs education consisted of teachings by his parents and by intermittent attendance in public schools. Although he had dreams of becoming an artist, he did not have the opportunity for formal study of art, and began working long days in the vineyards around Fresno. At age seventeen, Haig made a step towards his dreams and apprenticed himself to learn the trade of sign painting. In his spare time he nurtured his interest in art by painting nature and life scenes with watercolors and oil paints. When his sign-painting mentor left Fresno, Haig opened his own shop and made a name for himself in the town. San Francisco, in the meantime, had been attracting artists since the Gold Rush and had become a thriving art center. Within a few years, Haig had put aside several hundred dollars to move to San Francisco, joining his brother who was already working there as an illustrator. In 1899, when he was twenty-three, Haig had saved enough money to enroll at the Mark Hopkins Art Institute in San Francisco. Like many aspiring artists of his time, Patigian supported himself by working as a staff artist in the art department of a local newspaper, and in the winter of 1900, nearing his 24th birthday, Haig began work for the San Francisco Bulletin, producing cartoons, black and white illustrations, as well as watercolors. In 1902 tragedy struck Haig and his family. His 29-year-old brother died of pneumonia, and then his frail mother died a short time later. Five months more saw his youngest sister, just out of high school, die too. Saddened and depressed, Haig moved out of the studio he had shared with his brother, and into a dilapidated studio in a poor section of town. During this time of sadness, Haig fed a growing interest in sculpture. In 1904 Haig created what he later called his "first finished piece in sculpture". The work, called "The Unquiet Soul", depicted a man thrown back against a rock while waves lash at his feet. 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1930s American Modern Max Kalish Figurative Sculptures

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Vogel
By Paul Edouard Delabriere
Located in San Francisco, CA
Artist: Paul Edouard Delabrierre (French, 1829-1912) Title: Vogel Year: Circa 1900 Medium: Cast bronze sculpture, with dark brown patina Edition: Unknown Size: 12.3 x 9 x 9.25 inches Signature: Signed on the deck Condition: Excellent About the artist: Paul-Édouard Delabrièrre (29 March 1829 – 1912) was a French animalier sculptor who worked in the mid-to-late 19th century and the early 20th century. He had 70 of his sculptures juried into the prestigious Salon art exhibition held annually in Paris. His monumental work called L'Equitation adorns the facade of the Louvre museum. Delabrièrre was an important member of the animalier school who exhibited at the Salon from 1848 through 1882. His first two exhibits were typical of the style of his work throughout his career. He submitted Greyhound Holding a Hare and Wounded Deer. Most of his oeuvre were comparatively small models, however his larger pieces often incorporated figures. His work varies in style and quality with some models directly influenced by Antoine-Louis Barye who was the father of the animalier school. Delabrièrre's more popular realist bronzes were of impeccable quality and place him in the top echelon of his school. The facade of the Louvre incorporates one of his largest groups, the monumental L 'Equitation, which depicts a horse and two putti, one of whom is aboard the horse. It was completed by Delabrièrre in 1857 and installed that same year. In the final two years of his exhibiting career Delabrièrre experimented with iron as a worthy material for the Salon, although that idea did not go over well with collectors who were accustomed to bronzes. The works that were done in cast iron were produced by the art foundry Durenne Val Osne under the direction of Pierre Louis Rouillard. A list of Delabrièrre's 70 works presented at the Salon can be found in the Dictionnaire des Sculpteurs by Stanislas Lami. Versatility was one of Delabrièrre's strengths. The range of animals he sculpted covers nearly every large mammal to be found in continental Europe. He also did a few lion and panther sculptures during his career, as well as some camel and bird pieces, but his favorite subjects seemed to be dogs and big cats. He exhibited his Javanese panther in plaster at the 1857 Salon as well as Tigre du Bengale at the 1865 Salon. His repertoire also included some pieces executed in the orientalist genre. Delabrièrre used both the sand casting method and the lost wax method to create his sculptures. As early as December 1869 his sculptures had begun to be imported to the United States by the Philadelphia jewelry...
Category

Early 20th Century Academic Max Kalish Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Bronze

Vogel
Vogel
H 12.35 in W 9 in D 9.25 in

Max Kalish figurative sculptures for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Max Kalish figurative sculptures available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Max Kalish in bronze, metal, marble and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large Max Kalish figurative sculptures, so small editions measuring 8 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Walter Bastianetto, Arieh Merzer, and Tom Binger. Max Kalish figurative sculptures prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $10,450 and tops out at $36,000, while the average work can sell for $22,500.

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