Leonda finke biography of rory

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Leonda finke biography of rory

Ok, hide this. Here is some more information about Finke from an art dealer's web site. Here is a link to a YouTube video interview with the artist first of three videos. George also compiled this information on her career, and provided some pictures. Account Information First Name. At home, in addition to her carvings, sketches and drawings, she began regularly to work in clay and started to exhibit and win prizes locally by From the very beginning her interest in Fig 4.

Over the years she repeatedly emphasized that her own engagement with dancing from a very early age provided direct sensual understanding of how bodily language is expressive of feeling. Fig 5. Emily Dickinson, Leonda Finke Bronze, mm Photo: David Finn sculpture focused on the form of the female body, but she never espoused the classically popular mode of realism that emphasized surface beauty.

Though often employing unfinished surface roughness to help communicate the unresolved passions and stresses which she considered inherent in the female condition, she eschewed purely abstract forms such as were increasingly prevalent in mid-twentieth Century modern art. She was by then in her 60s with a nationally established reputation as a sculptor of large statuary already widely displayed in museums and gardens throughout the United States.

Several factors seem to have motivated her turn toward the medallic form at this time. She had also became aware, as did other distinguished sculptors, that modern iterations of the medal no longer had to be round or rectangular…in other words that medals might now be construed more broadly, as small hand-held sculptural forms. Emerging Woman, Leonda Finke Another portrait medal, of Virginia Woolf , created for the British Art Medal Society, presents a rather melancholic visage of the author.

From the beginning she typically avoided the confinement of traditionally circular and rectangular medallic formats preferring to take full advantage of the freedom of expression her method of modelling and casting afforded. Her technique often involved vigorously, more or less spontaneously, attacking a formless mass of clay or plaster to initiate her medallic sculpture.

This resulted in seemingly random cleavages and bold irregularities of outline which Leonda particularly valued as unanticipated eccentricities to serve as paths helpful in expressing inner tensions for the medallic forms she was creating, and which somehow reflected her own intense personal emotions. This method, fostering novelty in creation, constituted a choice she made in deliberate contradistinction to the usual sculptural method of a more orderly modelling of figures destined to be confined within the orderly roundel long traditional in medallic art.

On the other hand, however, Leonda clearly expressed her firm acceptance of two principles that had governed the art of the medal since Renaissance times: namely, the idea that the two sides of a medal be made to engage in a dialogue to unify the finished work and, secondly, that however novel the stylistic nuances employed in the creation of any given medal, its ultimate realization ought somehow to retain some loyalty to, some continuity with, 94 Fig The choice of an irregularly incised upper medallic outline serves well to suggest the wildness of a natural background while the basically circular lower aspect of the medal more conventionally reflects the more personal aspect of the dialogue.

Another example, Hannah — Her Despair, Her Desire again contrasts differing moods, though here presenting a single female subject, a known biblical personage. Coin World July 6, , p. July Photo: George Cuhaj. By the age of 11 she was sketching in museums, taking regular art classes, and soon wandering around commercial galleries figs.

In an autobiographical statement Leonda emphasized that her personal enthusiastic participation in dance from an early age, which was maintained well into adult life, served to stimulate and facilitate a sensitivity to bodily form and led to her eagerness to study and portray such forms in two and then three dimensions. However, her art tended to develop ever more independently and, especially as it became home based, her three dimensional sculptures came to be wrought, initially in clay but later predominantly in plaster, with larger models supported by an internal metal armature, and with many ultimately cast via lost wax in bronze.

Having married her husband and life-long partner Arnold Finke in fig. Though from the very beginning her interest in sculpture focused on the form of the female body, she never espoused the classically popular mode of realism which emphasized surface beauty figs. Often employing unfinished surface roughness to help communicate the unresolved passions and stresses which she considered inherent in the female condition, she eschewed purely abstract forms such as were increasingly prevalent in mid-twentieth-century modern art.

Identification with women remained a generally consistent feature of her approach to sculpture throughout her life and indeed was later translated to her medallic work as well. Leonda Finke, Photographs by David Finn op. Sculpture Review Vol Winter p. Private collection; photo: Tara Donahue size unknown. Leonda attended during which she was accompanied by her husband, Arnold.

She was then in her 60s with a nationally established reputation as a sculptor of large statuary that had already come to be widely displayed in museums and gardens throughout the United States. Several factors seem to have motivated her turn toward the medallic form at this time. She had by then also became aware, as had other distinguished sculptors, that modern iterations of the medal were no longer expected to be round or rectangular, in other words that the medal might now be construed more broadly, conceived and constructed as small hand-held sculptural forms.

This resulted in seemingly random cleavages and bold irregularities of outline which Leonda particularly valued as unanticipated eccentricities that served as paths helpful in expressing inner tensions within the medallic forms she was creating, and which somehow reflected her own intense personal emotions. This method, fostering novelty in creation, constituted a choice she deliberately made in contradistinction to the usual sculptural method of a more orderly modelling of figures destined to be confined within the roundel long traditional in medallic art.

Another portrait medal, of Virginia Woolf fig. Leonda also developed a similar theme in Emerging Woman fig. The choice of an irregularly incised upper medallic outline serves here to suggest the wildness of a natural background while the more conventional circular lower aspect of the medal reflects the more personal aspect of the dialogue. It is also interesting to see just how the artist has arranged to position a slouching mourner on one side and a radiant fully erect celebrant on the other within a medallic outline identically irregular on both sides.

Because her Hebrew name is placed above the seated figure, the despairing Hannah appears more or less centered on all sides thus making the obverse medallic field seem rounder and more confining than it actually is; the emptiness to both sides of the standing figure on the other side, by contrast, allows the reverse face of the medal to convey a more vertical, open, hopeful aspect.

On the other hand, Leonda clearly expressed a firm acceptance of two principles that had governed the art of the medal since Renaissance times: firstly, the idea that the two sides of a medal should be made to engage in a dialogue unifying the finished work and, secondly, that however novel the stylistic nuances employed in the creation of any given medal, its ultimate realization ought somehow to retain some loyalty to, some continuity with, earlier traditions of medal making.

From the beginning she typically avoided the strict confinement of traditionally circular and rectangular medallic formats, preferring to take full advantage of the freedom of expression her own method of modelling and casting afforded. Private collection; photo by David Finn 25 cm. Nevertheless, a few of her medals depict men, though these seem mostly to have been external commissions rather than the self-initiated art medals of the female types just discussed.

Bernstein is presented as inspired, with head upraised as he conducts with both hands active; above, charmingly ensconced in a sort of comic-book style thought bubble, are the famous pair of cufflinks that had been gifted by his beloved mentor, Serge Koussevitsky, which Bernstein routinely kissed for good luck before every performance. For this medal she rather uncharacteristically chose a basically circular outline, likely out of deference to the traditional format long standard in this established series, which dated back to the s.

I had originally misconstrued the cufflinks as microphones and am indebted to Frances Simmons for correcting my error. For more on the series see D.