Recently posted on the Scriver “page” for www.askart.com are these two sculptures that are up for auction. I don’t know which auction. Go to askart.com to find out. You might have to subscribe or find a dealer who subscribes.
These are very early experiments for Bob (1951) and were sold for tourist trinkets. They were deliberately designed to be simple and more or less bilateral so that a simple two-halves mold (probably Koroseal at that point) would come apart without damaging the casting. They sold for only a few dollars. Some had places for a little glass saucer so they could be used as ashtrays. They were painted with a Paasche airbrush.
Ace Powell and Blake the Woodcarver (the Hungry Horse originator) both used this technology. It was not plaster of paris, but hydrocal, a much harder version of plaster, and I'm not sure Ace or Blake had the capacity to use Koroseal, which was very tricky stuff. Blake, aside from the little horses, made mostly masks of Indians, using molds (probably latex) taken from the carved faces he made in cottonwood bark, which can be very thick and like cork. Ace and Bob went on to cast bronze, but as far as I know, Blake never did.
All of the three sold hundreds of castings. Bob and Jeannette, his second wife, went on a selling trip in a circle around the prairie West and took so many orders that they finally couldn't fill them.
Ace investigated steel molds for plastic injection castings, but they were way too expensive for the artists at this stage of the game. It was a whole complex of making small figures to sell to the tourists, newly patriotic after the war and exploring the new road systems.
These are very early works and their charm will disappear if they are translated in bronze.
Ace Powell and Blake the Woodcarver (the Hungry Horse originator) both used this technology. It was not plaster of paris, but hydrocal, a much harder version of plaster, and I'm not sure Ace or Blake had the capacity to use Koroseal, which was very tricky stuff. Blake, aside from the little horses, made mostly masks of Indians, using molds (probably latex) taken from the carved faces he made in cottonwood bark, which can be very thick and like cork. Ace and Bob went on to cast bronze, but as far as I know, Blake never did.
All of the three sold hundreds of castings. Bob and Jeannette, his second wife, went on a selling trip in a circle around the prairie West and took so many orders that they finally couldn't fill them.
Ace investigated steel molds for plastic injection castings, but they were way too expensive for the artists at this stage of the game. It was a whole complex of making small figures to sell to the tourists, newly patriotic after the war and exploring the new road systems.
These are very early works and their charm will disappear if they are translated in bronze.
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12"
(30.48cm)
Created: c. 1951
plaster of plaster
Auction House: Subscribers
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Low Est.:
Sale Price:
It sold for $173. |
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8"
(20.32cm)
Created: c. 1951
plaster of paris
Auction House: Subscribers This one sold for $184.
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