The 1940 program included an article on Madeleine Park, an internationally-known animal sculptor to whom the Circus granted up-close access to its animals in Madison Square Garden, so she could model them in clay. (I wonder what the current management’s reaction would be if she showed up and asked to model the animals?) |
Thursday, October 07, 2010
1940 RBBB Program #10
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4 comments:
I wonder what ever happened to the clay models. Imagine they would be worth a little scratch by now
I assume the final sculpture was done in hot-cast bronze.
During this process, when the molds are made, the clay original is destroyed. The clay is often cut to make separate molds for smaller pieces (such as the legs), and the removal of the molds often smears and/or distorts the clay. The finished molds serve as a negative cavity of the original clay. Into the molds the hot wax is poured (which, when cool and molds removed, produces an exact replica of the original clay), followed by repetitive dips in increasingly coarse sand slurries which will then serve as the casing for the molten bronze after the wax has been melted and evacuated.
After cooling, the entire thing (which at this stage looks like a rock hard sand glob) is sand blasted, exposing the bronze which is now an exact replica of the wax, and in turn the original clay. The bronze is cleaned up, and patina is applied. The finished bronze is mounted on a base of wood or onyx or whatever the artist requests.
So, mystery solved. There are no longer any clay models.
Here is a link to an on-line article telling more about Madeleine Park:
http://www.bronze-gallery.com/sculptors/artist.cfm?sculptorID=128
Apparently, she knew Charles Hunt of the Hunt Bros. Circus.
Madeleine Park never really achieved lasting success as an artist or sculptor, certainly nothing like the status of the famous French Sculptor Bayre, who modelled many well-known sculptures of animals in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Although noted in her own time, she has virtually been forgotten today, and you would be hard pressed to find examples of her work in most major art museums today. Her clay models were mostly destroyed as they were made into molds for casting in bronze. I have seen some of her bronzes- one of a horse is on display at the Ringling Museum of the Circus in Sarasota, which many of the blog readers have probably walked past many times, never knowing who the sculptor was. I have never seen any of her works come up for auction in the last 20 years or so, so there really aren't any good valuations for her work to compare. A small "cast stone" piece came up on eBay in the last year and although it was signed Madeleine Park, I don't think anyone bidding on it knew anything about her, and was just bidding as it was a "cute" little elephant statue. I won the auction and with shipping it was about $30. "Cast Stone" by the way is an exagerated term that means colored cement or other such solutions that harden usually by water evaporation. Usually pieces like this are made from secondary molds taken off of bronzes, but rarely are first generation as the bronzes would be. In other words, cast stone is a poor man's art medium. In today's market, I would venture that an original Madeleine Park cast bronze piece would land in the $1,000-$2,000 range depending on the size and subject, which isn't really very much in the art world today. This is probably more than anyone cares to know, but I thought I would comment anyway. Neil Cockerline, Minneapolis, MN
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