Description
Born in Washington, Pennsylvania, in 1912, James Rosati was trained as a violinist but decided instead to become a sculptor. In the first studio-workshop he attended, the training consisted entirely of copying casts of body parts, and Rosati credits his teacher, Frank Vittor, who had been a pupil of Rodin, with educating him in the craft of sculpture. Both Vittor's vocation as a sculptor of public statuary and Rosati's subsequent work as an architectural sculptor in the Work Projects Administration's Federal Art Project between 1937 and 1941, no doubt motivated Rosati to consider the problem of the interaction of sculpture with its environment. This concern has been fundamental to his work since the 1960s and is exemplified in such mature outdoor pieces as Lippincott I. But environmental concerns also inform his earlier work such as Heroic Galley, and there is a continuity in Rosati's artistic development no matter how dissimilar, stylistically, his sculptures from different periods appear to be. The two pieces in the Empire State Plaza Art Collection exemplify this consistency. In this sculpture Rosati grouped together forms that depict the abstractedbacks of slightly-larger-than-life-size figures. The outsidefigures press inward, giving the impression that the rectangulargroup is cinched together at the waist. The undulating shapes and the cuts that separate them maximize the inherent capacity of bronze to reflect light. These effects are enhanced as the viewer changes position, so that full realization of the sculpture's rhythm depends on an active spectator. Reproduction of this image, including downloading, is prohibited without written authorization from the Estate of the Artist.
Details
- Work Date:
- 1958
- Location:
- Agency Building 2
- Dimensions:
- 4'-7" x 6'-3 1/2" x 9"
- Medium:
- Bronze