The Sower - by Albin Polasek (1879 – 1965) was a Czech-American sculptor and educator, who created more than four hundred works during his career. Polasek, after serving as an apprentice woodcarver, immigrated to the U.S. at the young age of 22. In 1905, he moved to Philadelphia for formal art training at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied under Charles Grafly, Jr., a renowned art educator and sculptor. Before leaving the academy, Polasek became a naturalized American citizen. In 1910, Polasek won the prestigious Prix de Rome competition, an honor giving him entry to the Italian art world. For three years in Rome, he trained at the American Academy of Art. In 1911, he created what would become one of his most famous–and controversial-works, The Sower, a classical study of the human form. The bronze sculpture, which depicts a nude male sowing seeds, won honorable mention in the spring Paris Salon of 1913. Back in the states, the statue created a public stir when the Chicago Institute of Art chose to put it on public display outside the building, not counting on the attavic overwhelming prudishness of many Americans, particularly in the Mid-West. The piece was moved inside, and eventually found a permanent home in the Chicago Botanical Garden.
Tom of Finland
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Lord Leighton (1830-1896) | The Sluggard | 1851
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton, known as Sir Frederic Leighton between 1878 and 1896, was an English painter and sculptor, whose elegant works, depicted historical, biblical, and classical subject matter. Leighton was bearer of the shortest-lived peerage in history; after only one day his hereditary peerage became extinct upon his death.
Friday, December 7, 2018
“Icarus and Daedalus” by Frederic Leighton, c1869.
