Indian Head Plaque by Alois Sutter

Here yet again is a lovely piece that I watched cycle through relisting after relisting on the big online auction site. I finally found the admittedly modest amount of buy-it-now money to snatch it out from under the dozen or so others who had also been watching it. I'm very glad it found its long term home on my wall!

This piece is a fine cast bronze (I believe it's bronze anyway) plaque of a handsome young Indian man's face. No patina has ever been applied, what is there has been brought about by time. What makes this a bit more unique is that the plaque is oval and the face is raised in high relief, so that it stands out to about where his ears would be hidden behind his hair. In his long hair he wears two feathers and some sort of ribbon or roach holding them upright on the back of his head, the hair at his temples being caught up in ponytails that are wrapped toward the ends. A pair of large hoop earrings, a highly decorated shirt and a peace medal around his neck complete his outfit. Around the front edge is a border with raised edges and "Indian symbols" inside. Cast on the back is, "Casted by Al. Sutter, N28, 2851 Wallace St. Chicago ILL." There is a lug at the top with a ring through it for ease of hanging.

A search of the 1928/9 Chicago City Directory shows an Alois Sutter living at 2851 Wallace Street. Bingo! But that's about all of the info that I have been able to find on him. That address is a 2 unit home (it was back then as well) and looks to be a rental, so I have no idea how long he lived there or what he did for a living. If anyone out there has any info on either this lovely plaque or Alois Sutter, please let me know!

 Note: The blue spots on the left side of the forehead in the first picture are from a TV that was on in the background, and the small white spots are flecks of house paint that come off easily with a fingernail but are difficult to see with the naked eye. I'll take new pictures after I remove them!

Indian Head Plaque, bronze, Alois Sutter (cast), 1928, front

Indian Head Plaque, bronze, Alois Sutter (cast), 1928, left

Indian Head Plaque, bronze, Alois Sutter (cast), 1928, right

Indian Head Plaque, bronze, Alois Sutter (cast), 1928, top

Indian Head Plaque, bronze, Alois Sutter (cast), 1928, bottom

Indian Head Plaque, bronze, Alois Sutter (cast), 1928, back

Young Farmer and Girl With Jug Inkwell by Peter Tereszczuk (1875-1963)

While the main thrust of my bronze collecting blog has been Native American Indian in theme, I do also collect bronzes from other genres that I also find both interesting and pleasing. Especially if I get a good deal on them! This bronze I find to be aesthetically appealing, a beautiful Art Nouveau antique that I was extremely fortunate to find. I purchased it in an online auction which had a sparse description but decent pictures and a very low starting bid. The inkwell was a bit dirty but not excessively so. What is left of the original applied (hot) polychrome patina could be seen, superseded on the exposed surfaces by the naturally occurring patina that only age can bring. I could see that with a proper cleaning and waxing that it would really look amazing.

I placed my bid and watched the auction closely. Happily and rather surprisingly, no one bid against me! A handful of days later, I was carefully removing the lightly encrusted dust of many years and applying fresh wax. It really looks fantastic now! The deterioration of the coloration that the artist either applied or specified has been slowed if not halted, and the dirt that promotes corrosion has been removed and blocked from the surface of the bronze in the future. With routine care, this inkwell should easily last centuries if not millennia.

With a little research, I quickly found that I had purchased not just an old inkwell but a real treasure. Peter Paul Tereszczuk (his signature here is the earlier version that he used) was born in 1875 in Wybudow, a village now in the Ukraine but then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He moved to Vienna, Austria to study woodcarving at the school of Arts and Crafts in Vienna under Hermann Klotz. By 1895 he was an established and well known sculptor in Vienna. He mostly created small sculptures, often as decoration on tabletop objects ranging from lamps to desk sets (inkwells, blotters, card trays and the like) to vases and jardieneres, an incredible range of objects and sculptures over a roughly thirty year period. Tereszczuk created many of the fanciful and beautiful lamp bases that are topped with the incredibly beautiful glass shades of Loetz, Émile Gallé, Daum Nancy and many other top level French and Bohemian glass artisans of the day. He was one of the first (if not THE first) Art Nouveau sculptors to add carved ivory to his bronzes, replacing faces, torsos and other areas of bare skin in a revival of the style called "chryselephantine" that dates back to ancient times. Though these now-antique works can be tricky to import (if not own) due to laws designed to protect our endangered animal populations, they are highly collectible. His prolific works helped define Viennese Art Nouveau at the time and for the ages, but by 1925 Art Nouveau was being replaced by Art Deco. He briefly worked in this new style but rather quickly disappeared from the art scene. Peter Tereszczuk passed away in Vienna in 1963.

Depicted here is a couple sharing a drink from a jug. The young man is seated, he is shirtless but is wearing a pair of simple loose pants and the plain boots of a farmer. In his right hand is a large scythe, the blade resting on the ground below his dangling feet. On his head he is wearing a simple felt hat commonly known in antiquity as a pileus, which was the symbol in Roman times of a freed slave and is still a symbol of freedom today. His left hand is raised, holding up a jug which is also supported by a young woman who is laying across his lap. She is wearing a kerchief around her head, a simple blouse with the sleeves rolled up, a sash wrapped around her waist and a peasant style dress that fans out across her seat. She is also wearing low boots or shoes which peek out from under the hem of her dress. The pose of the pair is very naturalistic and highly detailed, the expressions on their faces exquisitely rendered. The young man's muscles are so well sculpted that even his veins can clearly be seen. To the right of the couple is the lid to the ink pot, also so well rendered that it takes a fairly close look to make out the edges of the opening. Inside is a soldered-in tapered insert which shows little sign of having held ink in the past, though  it may have had a glass insert that has gone missing. The base is designed as a tray, to lay pens on between uses. It too shows no ink stains that I could see. The bronze was originally carefully patinated, the skin, clothes and base carefully colored using a hot chemical process, not cold painted like the more mass produced Vienna bronzes most of us are familiar with. The colors have darkened over time. This piece, though utilitarian in nature, was created as fine art. Overall, this is an elegant piece of desk furniture, elevating the normal and everyday to high art.

This inkwell is signed P. Tereszczuk on the back and has a foundry mark, a K inside a horseshoe, for K. Korff (a sculptor whom I believe had his own foundry in Vienna). It's in perfect, undamaged and lightly used condition and has a lovely patina commensurate with age. It's most likely an earlier work as it is made of solid bronze. Once the artist began working with ivory, most of what he created had at least one ivory element in it.

I have only found a couple pictures of another inkwell like mine, though that one was rather unfortunately damaged, having a hole in the base behind a dangling foot. I have yet to find another. It's rare indeed!

I'm very happy that I have this lovely sculptural inkwell in my collection. It's a beautiful example of the work of an incredibly talented artist.

Young Farmer and Girl With Jug, Vienna bronze inkwell, Peter Tereszczuk, front, closed

Young Farmer and Girl With Jug, Vienna bronze inkwell, Peter Tereszczuk, front, open

Young Farmer and Girl With Jug, Vienna bronze inkwell, Peter Tereszczuk, left

Young Farmer and Girl With Jug, Vienna bronze inkwell, Peter Tereszczuk, right

Young Farmer and Girl With Jug, Vienna bronze inkwell, Peter Tereszczuk, back

Young Farmer and Girl With Jug, Vienna bronze inkwell, Peter Tereszczuk, signature

Centaur Brought Down By Broken Heart by James Croak (contemporary)

As I have mentioned in an earlier post ("An Interrupted Wooing" by J. Edgar Stouffer), I have a lifelong fondness for high fantasy art. This has extended to my bronze collection. Sculptures in bronze within the fantasy milieu are, however, quite rare, a veritable snipe hunt for a collector. The mere amount of work and expense involved in creating a bronze sculpture typically precludes this genre as fantasy art is not deemed "worthy" of said expense and work by the mainstream art community. That is, in large part, why sculptures such as my "An Interrupted Wooing" by J. Edgar Stouffer and this one by James Croak are highly coveted by myself and my fellow collectors who enjoy such works.

A few years back, I had seen this piece come up for auction. The description was very spartan (as usual with most of the pieces I buy), the price a bit on the high side of my normal range and not within the mainstream theme of my collection. I placed it in my "watch list" and kept an eye on it. Eventually, the seller changed the auction to a buy-it-now format. Still it had only one watcher (myself) while it spent a while being periodically renewed. The seller added the "make an offer" option, but sadly it was while I was in the early throes of my current spate of ill health and while I was at my most impoverished. A few weeks later, however, I found myself with a few extra bucks in hand and facing several months flat on my back in bed, awaiting yet another surgery. I made an offer that was pretty low, figuring I'd be turned down, but the seller accepted within minutes! When it arrived at my home, I was quite pleasantly surprised at just how large and rather heavy it is as well as how detailed the work is. I promptly dusted it and set it on one of my display tables along with several of my other bronzes that are definitely NOT of an Indian ( I have several Grand Tour bronzes as well - more on those later).

Until recently, I had been content to own this plaque in ignorance of the maker, believing that searching for someone named "Croak" was a fool's errand, especially as it related to a sculpture involving death. The other day I woke up to the fact that I hadn't even tried to look. Once I searched "Croak" and "sculptor," however, I began to feel foolish indeed! Immediately the name James Croak popped up, links to his works making up most of the first page. Now, I'm not that familiar with contemporary sculpture by and large, knowing only a few names and works, mainly ones that came up in my research on sculpting classes (yes, I have my own ambitions beyond merely collecting). I now feel like the world has been moving past me while I was looking the other way. James Croak has been a "wunderkind" of the contemporary art world for a few decades now. In 1985, unable to afford to cast one of his works in bronze, he began casting using a mixture of dirt and glue as his medium, and in that act creating a new and bold statement. His "Dirt People" took the art world by storm. His accolades and honors are many and easily found with the most basic of searches, or by simply clicking the link to the right.

Upon finding his website, I snapped these pictures and sent them to him to inquire if he was the artist who created it, the whole time more than half certain that he wasn't. The next morning he sent a brief response simply stating, "Yes, I made that." I was floored. I am still.

In a subsequent email, Mr. Croak elaborated a bit, writing that this was one of two that he had made of this piece and was also quite rare as he has not made many bronzes at all. He also mentioned that, for insurance purposes, a small piece of his had recently sold at auction in NY for a sum in the five figures. Again, I was floored. I am still.

Depicted here on a roughly oval shaped base is a fully realized (a fully modeled figure, not a relief) nude male centaur who has been brought down by a lioness (likewise fully rendered), which has him by the throat. Hoof prints lead up to his fallen body and behind him is a discarded pennant upon which is written, "TRUTH JUSTICE MERCY." On the back it is signed "CROAK" with the date "1985." Also on the back are two threaded blind holes in lugs that sit flush with the rim, one at each side, but no way to hang it short of first mounting it on a base of some sort. When propped up on its rim, the plaque is too top heavy to stand and tips either forward or backward. It is a very solid piece!

I do not believe it was displayed for long after its creation, until my purchasing it. The piece is completely damage free, it only had a light coating of old dust that came off easily and left no bad spots. The patina is a little thin on the centaur's rear haunch, the highest spot on the whole piece, but that's not unusual given the age of this piece. I feel that I'm fortunate to have been able to purchase this plaque. It's certainly (almost) unique!

"Centaur Brought Down By Broken Heart," by James Croak, bronze, 1985, one of two made, front

"Centaur Brought Down By Broken Heart," by James Croak, bronze, 1985, one of two made, signature on back

J. H. Bond Plaque - The Mystery Deepens!

I was surfing one of my usual haunts not long ago when I spotted a nice looking bronze plaque listed with a very reasonable starting bid. I threw my hat into the ring and happily in due course won it. The listing stated that it was numbered but not signed, which I found to be very odd. I've seen many bronzes that were signed but not numbered, but never one the other way around! I figured the seller had just not found the signature, so I wasn't that concerned. At the same time, perhaps the second or third time I was staring at the pictures and looking for the elusive scrawl, it dawned on me that something in the lines of the art reminded me lot of my J. H. Bond plaque. Even though the two plaques wildly differ in subject matter (outside both being Indian themed), once the idea set in it felt like a certainty. I couldn't explain why I felt the way I did other than intuition however.

Well, today it arrived, and I grabbed my magnifying glass and began looking it over. The plaque is round, roughly seven inches in diameter and made of very heavy solid bronze (though the weight of it, the way it smells and the way it "rings" has me thinking it's bronzed cast iron - more on that later) with a piece of hard wire soldered onto the back as a hanger. I checked the front very carefully - nothing. I flipped it over to the back, where the number and edition are scratched into it. Aside from the numbers (which had obviously been taped over to protect them), the entire back was covered in old glue that had taken on a flower pattern - I figure it had been glued up to a wall over flower print wallpaper, I'll be cleaning that off before too long - so I checked even more carefully. Again, there was nothing that could even be mistaken for a signature. After a moment of quiet perplexity, I took a look at the edge. That's when I got a nice, affirming surprise.

BINGO!!

Right in front of me was the signature that I more than half expected to find but couldn't tell you why I did, the autograph of J. H. Bond, Mystery Artist. So now I own not one, not two, but THREE bronzes by this artist, all purchased separately and from different parts of the country, and I STILL know nothing about them. This is getting frustrating!!

Depicted here on a round bronze plaque in fairly low relief is the profile of an elder Native Indian man who is wearing the upper part of a mountain lion (cougar or igmu) skull as a headdress and a feather hanging from each temple. His long hair and left feather are being blown forward by an unseen wind as he squints his intense gaze at something in front of him. On the rim, at the bottom, it is signed J^ H. Bond followed by the copyright symbol, but no date. On the back, below and to the right of the soldered or brazed on hanger wire, it is numbered 18/2500.

I now have THREE bronzes by this (obviously) reasonably prolific sculptor and still have ZERO info about ANY of them, artist or works. It's like yet ANOTHER bronze has dropped into my growing collection from outer space. If anyone out there knows something about this mystery, please, PLEASE let me know!

Bronze Indian head plaque, signed J. H. Bond, 18/2500, undated, front

Bronze Indian head plaque, signed J. H. Bond, 18/2500, undated, back numbered

Bronze Indian head plaque, signed J. H. Bond, 18/2500, undated, signature

Panel for United States National Bank, Portland Oregon - Plaster Original by Avard Fairbanks (March 2, 1897 – January 1, 1987) - UPDATED

Note: In light of new and definitive information,  I've finally and correctly identified this work! I'm updating this post, choosing to revise rather than replace it. Most of the post wouldn't change, after all.

Next up isn't a bronze, but is the actual original plaster art used to make a panel in a bronze door! If you're at all familiar with bronze casting, then you know that the artist does not create the original art in bronze but in another medium, which is then molded up in a long and tedious process before being duplicated in bronze. In this way, no bronze is an actual "original," instead they're copies of the original work.

It's MUCH rarer to get one's hands on an original, one of a kind sculpture that was used as the basis of a bronze, than of the bronze copy itself. This is one of only a few pieces that I own (so far) that are of this caliber.

Now, what we have here is a square plaster plaque, 13.5" on each side. It is tinted sepia from having been coated in alginate during the molding process. There are a few small chips in the border, nothing too big or bad, but is otherwise in wonderful condition. A handwritten tag attached to the back states that it was created by artist Paul Walters (this is wrong, the artist was Avard Fairbanks) as a panel in a set of bronze doors at the "Oregon State University Art School" (also wrong, it's the upper panel in the right side door in the western façade at the United States National Bank building in Portland, Oregon). The seller had listed that it was created in 1926 (that's actually correct, the bronze doors were cast between 1926-1927). A random search of "bronze doors" and "Portland Oregon" turned up a picture which put the mystery of this panel to rest!

Depicted here are three Native men, two standing to the right in profile and one seated to the left with his back to the viewers. They are perched on a highland facing the ocean and are watching a ship sailing on the ocean below. The Indian standing to the far right is wearing a headdress, a rather rough looking loincloth and moccasins and is holding what appears to be a spear or staff. The Indian standing in the middle is wearing a head band with two standing feathers, a basic loincloth and moccasins and is holding a feathered staff with which it appears he is signaling the ship. The man on the left is seated and is wearing nothing but a single feather in his hair and maybe moccasins. His right hand is gripping a bow which is on the ground.

The overall message appears to be an interpretation of "The Coming of the White Man," or perhaps "First Contact." The panel to the immediate left, in the other door, depicts the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which is assumed to be the first contact between the descendants of European settlers and the First Peoples of the area. It seems a bit naïve, both in the depiction of somewhat stereotypical Indians of the period (at least to me) as well as the idea that such intrusion was welcomed by the Indigenous people at the time. But as this was created at the tail end of the age of Manifest Destiny, it is perhaps understandable. I'm certainly not an expert on the dress and customs of the tribes of the Northwest at the time of the first European ship's arrival at an Oregon shore, so perhaps it is indeed correct. As I understand it, the bronze doors "depict pivotal events in the historical development of the Columbia Basin." That makes sense.

Avard Tennyson Fairbanks was a prolific American sculptor. Three of his sculptures adorn the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. Another adorns just about every Dodge, especially the trucks - he was the sculptor who created the Dodge Ram head. He was, for a while, a member of the faculty of the University of Oregon, which may be where some of the confusion arose. It is entirely possible that "Paul Walters" may have had a hand in the creation of the bronze, or perhaps he was on the faculty as well and was given this as a gift, but that specific knowledge has been lost to time. The bronze is signed with Fairbanks's mark but must have been signed in the wax as the plaster is unsigned in that spot or any other.

Without further ado, I present this lovely plaster plaque by Avard Fairbanks. Enjoy!

Panel from bronze door, Avard Fairbanks, bronze part of western façade door at US National Bank, Portland OR, plaster original ca. 1926-1927