ARTISTS
Dynamic elegance
George Carlson`s sculptures of human and animal figures convey inherent beauty and dignity I By Todd Wilkinson FOR 40 YEARS, sculptor George Carlson
Todd Wilkinson / Southwest Art
01 Sep, 2002
George Carlson`s sculptures of human and animal figures convey inherent beauty and dignity I By Todd Wilkinson
FOR 40 YEARS, sculptor George Carlson has transformed bronze horses into grand allegories. He has also used mass and gesture abstractly, with spare detail, to communicate the ancient grace of indigenous peoples. And he`s become famous for his historical portraits and commissioned busts of individuals who are icons of our time. For Carlson, elegance flows from dynamic simplicity.
Carlson`s powerful human and animal figures have elevated him to the uncommon status of modern American master. Yet he is often asked one of the most common questions in the art world: "How do you know when a piece is finished?" In responding to such queries, the artist confesses that he is able to walk away from a piece and call it completed only when the voice of creation no longer screams in his head.
"As I begin to explore a new idea, I can`t wait to get into the studio because the voice is calling me, and it is relentless," he says from his home in Harrison, ID. "But you reach a certain point where your intuition knows that enough is enough, that any more refinement will detract rather than add. I`ve learned that if you go too far with detail, you suck all the life out of whatever it is you`re creating."
Still, Carlson admits there have been a few special circumstances when the dialogue has been ongoing. One of these involves an unfinished study of a Belgian horse, dusted off after two decades of dormancy, that Carlson revisited and finally cast. "My assistant was rummaging through some old boxes and said, `Boss, look at this.` It was an intriguing discovery because I had forgotten about it. When I get stuck on a piece, I don`t ever abandon it; I move on to something else thinking I will return to it. But this piece kind of slipped away. From the moment I saw it again, the voice in my head was still calling. But now I saw it through fresh eyes."
Rather than overhauling the work, Carlson sculpted a head for the horse`s already completed body, correcting what he identified as subtle anatomical inconsistencies between tension and repose. However, he left most of the original design intact, even preserving a gash that he had laid down in the clay long ago. "Someone else might have smoothed it over, but for me this little impression relates to a spontaneous incident that is part of the piece," he says. "As I`ve gotten older, I`ve learned that it`s better not to want to control everything. You need to let things happen."
Today THE BROOD MARE, begun in 1982, speaks to Carlson`s evolutionary relationship with realism. This "new" piece is among several equine works in a one-man retrospective show, appropriately titled The Year of the Horse, opening this month at Nicholas Fine Art in Billings, MT. "I`ve always been in love with horses," Carlson says. "They`ve been important to me as subjects over the course of my career, and in some ways THE BROOD MARE symbolizes how the past constantly cycles into the present."
Carlson is referring not only to his own body of work but also to his belief that answers to many modem sculptural challenges reside in antiquity. "There are some who doubt the value of classicism because they claim that all good traditional sculpture has been done before," Carlson says. "I`m not one of them. I`m continually amazed by works of the past-although I do believe that every generation is capable of offering its own meaningful contribution."
In The Year of the Horse, Carlson makes his case with pieces that have been personal touchstones-among them such well-known works as MANE OF WIND, NECK OF THUNDER; FRiou; and ROSETTE WAITING. These portrayals of quarter horses, Clydesdales, thoroughbreds, Belgians, and Percherons remind the viewer why Carlson`s work is in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Center, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, and the Gilcrease Museum.
"The word that comes to mind with George Carlson is mystique," says Bill Kerr, founder of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY, and a longtime collector of Carlson`s work. "George`s equine pieces don`t look like those of any other artist that I`m aware of. Okay, a pinch or two of Degas, but he has taken the species to a new level. I remember when George was doing his Tarahumara Series [of portraits of Indians], he talked about `bringing back the breath` of these extraordinary individuals. His equine subjects possess the same inhale/exhale vitality, and that makes them extraordinary."
"The strength in George Carlson`s work is way beyond his technical mastery," says Heidi Theios, director of Nicholas Fine Art. "His work possesses life-an almost intangible quality that many artists strive for but few are able to capture. It is a vibrant quality that is readily apparent to the viewer, regardless of his or her knowledge of art."
"To George, a horse is a beautiful thing. It is a creature of dignity," says sculptor Floyd Tennison DeWitt, whose images of horses, like Carlson`s, have been recognized by the National Sculpture Society and the National Academy of Western Art. Carlson`s work, DeWitt says, exudes a magical sparkle that can be ignited only through direct observation. "His work is like a fine piece of classical music. You can tap your toe to it, and you can feel it move your soul. George knows horses because he has spent so much of his life trying to fully understand them."
Carlson believes that deep within our collective memory, humans possess a visual affinity for horses, which connect us to our common primitive origins. Whether as beasts of burden, as steeds of transport, as vehicles for waging war, or as symbols of the untamed West, the horse is everpresent in the human psyche.
Still, horses are only part of Carlson`s repertoire. He is equally known for his interpretations of the human figure. His bronzes and pastels of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico and the tribes of the southwestern United States are regarded as classics. These historically significant works, created in the 1970s, were catalysts for a one-person exhibition at the Smithsonian`s Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and are part of the permanent collection of the Los Angeles Athletic Club. But for 15 years, Carlson didn`t attempt another Indian subject.
Then, at the 2002 Prix de West Invitational show in Oklahoma City, he returned to the figurative genre with style by entering a sensual celebration of a young Nez Perce woman titled THE GRACEFUL DANCE. The inspiration for the piece was an Indian dance Carlson witnessed in Lapwai, ID, near Lewiston. "I had visual images going through my head, so I invited one of the dancers to my studio and asked her bring her full regalia," he explains. Over the course of a week, the woman danced to Native music while Carlson sculpted.
Then, in need of perspective, he set the work aside. Months later, on a cold winter morning, he returned to the piece. He took photographs of it and ordered 8by-10-inch color prints, which he drew over with black markers. The model was gone, but his inner voice guided him. The piece came together and was well received by his contemporaries at Prix de West.
The story of Carlson`s career has been told many times. A native of Elmhurst, IL, he received early training at the American Academy of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago before heading west to the University of Arizona in Tucson. Initially, Carlson pursued
a career in illustration; his attraction to sculpture, he says, grew from a marriage of his interests in art and the biological sciences. "I really loved anatomy. I still do," he says. "I want my work to be embedded with knowledge [of anatomy], but I don`t want it to be conspicuous. I want to reward those who are willing to look deeper." Anatomy is about more than naming every muscle, Carlson says. It affects the way the edges of surface planes come up against one another, the way volume is presented, and how light catches a surface, and ultimately it sets the stage for interaction between positive and negative space.
Today Carlson delivers lectures at universities with the same emphasis on drawing and anatomy that he learned from his European-- educated instructors, and he says he knows he`s a throwback. "I know that when I`m up in front of these young students, they see me as some old dinosaur," he says. "But I consider it part of my mission to reach them, and every so often I`ll be rewarded by finding a few who love the figure."
As central as anatomy is to Carlson`s work, the Rocky Mountain landscape is an equally important influence. An enthusiastic denizen of the high plains and skyscraping slopes, Carlson says his work reflects the grandeur of the area around him. "The big, sweeping curves that take shape in my pieces come from what I observe in nature," he says. "I love freedom, and I love the feeling of open space."
CARLSON IS REPRESENTED BY NICHOLAS FINE ART, BILLINGS, MT; MATTHEW CHASE LTD., SANTA FE, NM; HOLLIS GALLERY, PASADENA, CA; MONGERSON GALLERY, CHICAGO, IL; MONTGOMERY GALLERY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA; AND ART SPIRIT GALLERY, COEUR D`ALENE, ID.
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE GRACEFUL DANCE, BRONZE, 31 X 16 X 15, EDITION 21.
GEORGE CARLSON.
THE BROOD MARE, BRONZE, 15 X 19, EDITION 21.
TOP: GREATER ASIAN ONE-HORNED RHINO, BRONZE, 14 1/2 x 28, EDITION 21. BOTTOM: OLD BLUE, BRONZE, 23 x 15 X 15 3/4, EDITION 21.
DOUBLE SUNRISE, BRONZE, 24 x 24, EDITION 21.
AUTHOR AFFILIATION
Todd Wilkinson lives in Bozeman, MT, and writes widely about art and nature.
COPYRIGHT: Copyright Sabot Publishing, Inc. Sep 2002. Provided by Proquest- CSA, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Only fair use as provided by the United States copyright law is permitted.
PROQUEST-CSA, LLC- MAKES NO WARRANTY REGARDING THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR TIMELINESS OF THE LICENSED MATERIALS OR ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.
FOR 40 YEARS, sculptor George Carlson has transformed bronze horses into grand allegories. He has also used mass and gesture abstractly, with spare detail, to communicate the ancient grace of indigenous peoples. And he`s become famous for his historical portraits and commissioned busts of individuals who are icons of our time. For Carlson, elegance flows from dynamic simplicity.
Carlson`s powerful human and animal figures have elevated him to the uncommon status of modern American master. Yet he is often asked one of the most common questions in the art world: "How do you know when a piece is finished?" In responding to such queries, the artist confesses that he is able to walk away from a piece and call it completed only when the voice of creation no longer screams in his head.
"As I begin to explore a new idea, I can`t wait to get into the studio because the voice is calling me, and it is relentless," he says from his home in Harrison, ID. "But you reach a certain point where your intuition knows that enough is enough, that any more refinement will detract rather than add. I`ve learned that if you go too far with detail, you suck all the life out of whatever it is you`re creating."
Still, Carlson admits there have been a few special circumstances when the dialogue has been ongoing. One of these involves an unfinished study of a Belgian horse, dusted off after two decades of dormancy, that Carlson revisited and finally cast. "My assistant was rummaging through some old boxes and said, `Boss, look at this.` It was an intriguing discovery because I had forgotten about it. When I get stuck on a piece, I don`t ever abandon it; I move on to something else thinking I will return to it. But this piece kind of slipped away. From the moment I saw it again, the voice in my head was still calling. But now I saw it through fresh eyes."
Rather than overhauling the work, Carlson sculpted a head for the horse`s already completed body, correcting what he identified as subtle anatomical inconsistencies between tension and repose. However, he left most of the original design intact, even preserving a gash that he had laid down in the clay long ago. "Someone else might have smoothed it over, but for me this little impression relates to a spontaneous incident that is part of the piece," he says. "As I`ve gotten older, I`ve learned that it`s better not to want to control everything. You need to let things happen."
Today THE BROOD MARE, begun in 1982, speaks to Carlson`s evolutionary relationship with realism. This "new" piece is among several equine works in a one-man retrospective show, appropriately titled The Year of the Horse, opening this month at Nicholas Fine Art in Billings, MT. "I`ve always been in love with horses," Carlson says. "They`ve been important to me as subjects over the course of my career, and in some ways THE BROOD MARE symbolizes how the past constantly cycles into the present."
Carlson is referring not only to his own body of work but also to his belief that answers to many modem sculptural challenges reside in antiquity. "There are some who doubt the value of classicism because they claim that all good traditional sculpture has been done before," Carlson says. "I`m not one of them. I`m continually amazed by works of the past-although I do believe that every generation is capable of offering its own meaningful contribution."
In The Year of the Horse, Carlson makes his case with pieces that have been personal touchstones-among them such well-known works as MANE OF WIND, NECK OF THUNDER; FRiou; and ROSETTE WAITING. These portrayals of quarter horses, Clydesdales, thoroughbreds, Belgians, and Percherons remind the viewer why Carlson`s work is in the permanent collections of the Denver Art Museum, the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, the Autry Museum of Western Heritage, the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Center, the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, and the Gilcrease Museum.
"The word that comes to mind with George Carlson is mystique," says Bill Kerr, founder of the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson, WY, and a longtime collector of Carlson`s work. "George`s equine pieces don`t look like those of any other artist that I`m aware of. Okay, a pinch or two of Degas, but he has taken the species to a new level. I remember when George was doing his Tarahumara Series [of portraits of Indians], he talked about `bringing back the breath` of these extraordinary individuals. His equine subjects possess the same inhale/exhale vitality, and that makes them extraordinary."
"The strength in George Carlson`s work is way beyond his technical mastery," says Heidi Theios, director of Nicholas Fine Art. "His work possesses life-an almost intangible quality that many artists strive for but few are able to capture. It is a vibrant quality that is readily apparent to the viewer, regardless of his or her knowledge of art."
"To George, a horse is a beautiful thing. It is a creature of dignity," says sculptor Floyd Tennison DeWitt, whose images of horses, like Carlson`s, have been recognized by the National Sculpture Society and the National Academy of Western Art. Carlson`s work, DeWitt says, exudes a magical sparkle that can be ignited only through direct observation. "His work is like a fine piece of classical music. You can tap your toe to it, and you can feel it move your soul. George knows horses because he has spent so much of his life trying to fully understand them."
Carlson believes that deep within our collective memory, humans possess a visual affinity for horses, which connect us to our common primitive origins. Whether as beasts of burden, as steeds of transport, as vehicles for waging war, or as symbols of the untamed West, the horse is everpresent in the human psyche.
Still, horses are only part of Carlson`s repertoire. He is equally known for his interpretations of the human figure. His bronzes and pastels of the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico and the tribes of the southwestern United States are regarded as classics. These historically significant works, created in the 1970s, were catalysts for a one-person exhibition at the Smithsonian`s Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, and are part of the permanent collection of the Los Angeles Athletic Club. But for 15 years, Carlson didn`t attempt another Indian subject.
Then, at the 2002 Prix de West Invitational show in Oklahoma City, he returned to the figurative genre with style by entering a sensual celebration of a young Nez Perce woman titled THE GRACEFUL DANCE. The inspiration for the piece was an Indian dance Carlson witnessed in Lapwai, ID, near Lewiston. "I had visual images going through my head, so I invited one of the dancers to my studio and asked her bring her full regalia," he explains. Over the course of a week, the woman danced to Native music while Carlson sculpted.
Then, in need of perspective, he set the work aside. Months later, on a cold winter morning, he returned to the piece. He took photographs of it and ordered 8by-10-inch color prints, which he drew over with black markers. The model was gone, but his inner voice guided him. The piece came together and was well received by his contemporaries at Prix de West.
The story of Carlson`s career has been told many times. A native of Elmhurst, IL, he received early training at the American Academy of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago before heading west to the University of Arizona in Tucson. Initially, Carlson pursued
a career in illustration; his attraction to sculpture, he says, grew from a marriage of his interests in art and the biological sciences. "I really loved anatomy. I still do," he says. "I want my work to be embedded with knowledge [of anatomy], but I don`t want it to be conspicuous. I want to reward those who are willing to look deeper." Anatomy is about more than naming every muscle, Carlson says. It affects the way the edges of surface planes come up against one another, the way volume is presented, and how light catches a surface, and ultimately it sets the stage for interaction between positive and negative space.
Today Carlson delivers lectures at universities with the same emphasis on drawing and anatomy that he learned from his European-- educated instructors, and he says he knows he`s a throwback. "I know that when I`m up in front of these young students, they see me as some old dinosaur," he says. "But I consider it part of my mission to reach them, and every so often I`ll be rewarded by finding a few who love the figure."
As central as anatomy is to Carlson`s work, the Rocky Mountain landscape is an equally important influence. An enthusiastic denizen of the high plains and skyscraping slopes, Carlson says his work reflects the grandeur of the area around him. "The big, sweeping curves that take shape in my pieces come from what I observe in nature," he says. "I love freedom, and I love the feeling of open space."
CARLSON IS REPRESENTED BY NICHOLAS FINE ART, BILLINGS, MT; MATTHEW CHASE LTD., SANTA FE, NM; HOLLIS GALLERY, PASADENA, CA; MONGERSON GALLERY, CHICAGO, IL; MONTGOMERY GALLERY, SAN FRANCISCO, CA; AND ART SPIRIT GALLERY, COEUR D`ALENE, ID.
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE GRACEFUL DANCE, BRONZE, 31 X 16 X 15, EDITION 21.
GEORGE CARLSON.
THE BROOD MARE, BRONZE, 15 X 19, EDITION 21.
TOP: GREATER ASIAN ONE-HORNED RHINO, BRONZE, 14 1/2 x 28, EDITION 21. BOTTOM: OLD BLUE, BRONZE, 23 x 15 X 15 3/4, EDITION 21.
DOUBLE SUNRISE, BRONZE, 24 x 24, EDITION 21.
AUTHOR AFFILIATION
Todd Wilkinson lives in Bozeman, MT, and writes widely about art and nature.
COPYRIGHT: Copyright Sabot Publishing, Inc. Sep 2002. Provided by Proquest- CSA, LLC. All Rights Reserved. Only fair use as provided by the United States copyright law is permitted.
PROQUEST-CSA, LLC- MAKES NO WARRANTY REGARDING THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR TIMELINESS OF THE LICENSED MATERIALS OR ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.