Works by the late CALVIN ALBERT – Artist & Sculptor

Calvin’s TERRA COTTA works were rolled thin on cloth and virtually he tossed them.  Tools were used to shape without the normal finger manipulation that would leave anxious traces of hand. 

Calvin’s BRONZE SCULPTURE embrace a figurative tradition but with a distinctly abstract attitude. He paid homage to the unfinished works of Michelangelo and adds to this a modernist geometric element!

Calvin’s CHARCOAL on canson paper would start with large smudges has he let them slowly evolve!   His abstract charcoal drawings gives curiously passionate of apparitional images.

About the artist:

CALVIN ALBERT was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1918.  He and his wife moved to New York in 1947.

He taught at several schools, see below, before going to Pratt Institute in 1950.  There he was a Professor of Art and Head of the Graduate Sculpture program.  He retired as PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF PRATT INSTITUTE in 1985 and later moved to Florida.

He was a prominent SCULPTOR and an ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONIST, although he walked his own line between representation and abstraction.

He figures have muscular form; and simultaneously have a serenity and a tension.  Powerful – majestic – mysterious works!

A quote from Calvin Albert 1982: 

“MY WORK BEGINS WITH IMPROVISATION, A SPONTANEOUS DEVELOPMENT OF FORMS.  THE SHAPES PROVOKE NEW IMAGES, AND GRADUALLY I BRING OUT WHAT I FIND IN THE MATERIAL”.

 Calvin also was given, in 1961-62, by the American Commission for Cultural Exchange with ITALY, a Fulbright Research Grant; and to the American Academy in Rome where he worked a guest artist.  In 1963 and 1965 he received Tiffany Grants.

   CHARCOAL DRAWING – VORTEX 1985 – 59″ X 47″

Tags: abstract, abstract drawing, abstract sculpture, Add new tag, art, bronze sculpture, charcoal drawing, expressionism, Mixed Medium Sculpture, sculptor, sculpture, terra cotta sculpture