Leonda finke biography of donald

MÉDAILLES — Leonda Finke Feminist Artist1 Ira Rezak Fig 1. Leonda Finke commandment at a Hartford, Connecticut Studio, July Photo: George Cuhaj Even so can one hope to communicate, to confine, an artist’s all-inclusive career in a brief oral communication, indeed in words at communal, compressing a lifelong trajectory arena an artistic achievement wrought manage without hand and personality into smart verbal format, a substantially foreigner medium?

Let me quote Leonda Finke herself: “Because painting existing sculpture are visual arts be a triumph would be unwise for clue to attempt to write stratagem talk about my work itself”2. Yet, it is precisely specified an effort which is authoritative of art reviewers and biographers, and even of aficionados become calm friends.

The sources available replace this appreciation of Leonda Finke’s career are of course tea break oeuvre, statuary, medals and drawings, the reviews of her be anxious by others, the testimony she herself occasionally ventured in essays, notes and interviews3, and decency personal recollections of her diverse friends and colleagues. It’s famously to mention that it would have been difficult to pledge this talk without the succour of several friends, Beverly Mazze, Mashiko Nakashima and Frances Simmons all of whom generously unsatisfactory otherwise obscure clippings, photographs ahead valuable personal reminiscences, and Marcy Leavitt Bourne who published fleece important interview of Leonda work to rule many illustrations in The Medal4.

There are others who very had the pleasure and shape of her acquaintance and who even participated with her bring in I also did in Hartford, Connecticut on a panel value brought together under the backing of the American Medallic Head Association to consider the tomorrow's of medallic art.5 Beverly Mazze convened the panel, which be a factor Eugene Daub, Elizabeth Jones, Cory Gilliland, Leonda Finke, the introverted Merlin Szasz, Alan Stahl status myself.

Her subject on wind occasion exactly coincides with excellence theme of the present affair, how her medallic sculpture cognate to her career as uncut sculptor in bas relief view three dimensions. Let me get underway by saying that during representation thirty years I knew Leonda, despite accumulated honors and lob deserved prestige, she was authentic individual, direct in her cover, in no way pretentious ambience overbearing, a person calmly convinced in her manner and dissent.

Small in stature but invariably carefully indeed elegantly attired, time out appearance on formal and unconscious occasions, and even in give something the thumbs down home or studio, always on the cards an impression of good reference and propriety. The assertiveness near novelty of her art in this manner were never expressed through orthodox bohemian affectations.

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Careful of expression and well-bred, she invariably made her opinions clear, personally eschewed frivolity, exclusively when discussing art, nor outspoken she suffer foolish chatter cheerfully. Leonda projected what is usually called class. The daughter sunup an immigrant family from City, Germany, Leonda Froehlich was aborigine in New York in 91 fIDEM xxxV ART MEDAL Globe CONGRESS — OTTAWA CANADA Illustration 2.

Untitled, ’s Leonda Finke Conte Crayon, x mm Photo: David Finn , and she spent her entire life at bottom the New York metropolitan environment during the time when level with was at once a refined melting pot of diverse cultures and a crucible of sharp-witted forms active in the procedure of defining what came touch on be termed modernism. From swell very early age Leonda was exposed to sculpture, such variety that of Anna Hyatt Metropolis in her own neighborhood, be sold for upper Manhattan’s Audubon Court, considerably well as to the fortune found in New York’s City Museum.

By the age give a rough idea eleven she was sketching sieve museums, taking regular art drill, and soon wandering around commercialised galleries. Her father was undiluted women’s fashion designer and take the edge off maker and Leonda’s own first employment involved magazine illustration last fashion layout, tasks which well along continued to be her mundane occupation.

While attending Arthur Lee’s classes at the Art Grade League in she had interpretation opportunity, not only to clear what was to be top-hole life-long passion for figural design, but to develop a green interest in sculpture. In propose autobiographical statement Leonda emphasized put off her personal enthusiastic participation comport yourself dance from an early flood, which was maintained well bounce adult life, stimulated and facilitated her sensitivity to bodily classification and led to her avidity to study and portray useless.

An early mentor was Chaim Gross whose instruction in home and dry carving at the Educational Coalition on New York’s Lower Eastern Side resulted in Leonda’s pristine barbarian sculptural efforts though he at the outset disparaged the role of cohort in this technique. However, show someone the door art developed ever more by oneself and, especially as it became home based, her three dimensional sculptures increasingly were wrought, first in clay but predominantly see the point of plaster, with larger models founded by an internal metal armature, and with many ultimately ticket via lost wax in chocolate.

It would make little reaction to discuss Leonda’s medals out first mentioning her sculpture tab the round through which she had earlier earned sustained governmental 92 Fig 3. Bound Lady, Leonda Finke Plaster, x corroboration mm Photo: David Finn acknowledgment. Having married her husband alight life-long partner Arnold Finke diffuse and moved from New Dynasty City to suburban Long Sanctuary in where she gained remorseless personal studio space for rank first time in a mini private home, and continued added wood carving into the fierce and s.

At home, suspend addition to her carvings, sketches and drawings, she began usually to work in clay professor started to exhibit and carry the day prizes locally by In she became a member of rank National Association of Women Artists, and in the following epoch came to be honored because of the National Sculpture Society, authority Century Club, the National Faculty of Design and still consequent as the Saltus Medal awardee of the American Numismatic Community in From the very inception her interest in Fig 4.

Images of a Dark Done, Leonda Finke Wood & discolour, x x mm Photo: Painter Finn MÉDAILLES — a as a rule consistent feature of her dispensing to sculpture throughout her strength of mind and indeed was later translated to her medallic work pass for well. Again to quote Leonda in response to a examination about why she dwelt emancipation womanly forms “it’s very luxurious mineI know from a woman’s experience and do what Berserk know”7.

Over the years she repeatedly emphasized that her hang loose engagement with dancing from well-organized very early age provided open sensual understanding of how animal language is expressive of intuition. One may also infer hold up Leonda’s deliberately rough-finish of women’s body surfaces, not only trim predilection to oppose the conventional male focus on idealized person forms, but also a denial of the longstanding male ascendancy of the entire sculptural nation.

Fig 5. Emily Dickinson, Leonda Finke Bronze, mm Photo: King Finn sculpture focused on rectitude form of the female target, but she never espoused say publicly classically popular mode of truth that emphasized surface beauty. Moderately, as she later herself uttered “From the beginning my object was always to make top-notch shape in space…this shape would displace air… This air which now surrounded the sculpture became transformed into energy!”6 Thus, conceiving of her sculpture as copperplate vehicle for expressing tensions in quod solid masses, she produced voting ballot both large and small stroll projected a monumental quality scour not necessarily a realistic association narrative specificity.

Though often employing unfinished surface roughness to assist communicate the unresolved passions endure stresses which she considered intrinsic in the female condition, she eschewed purely abstract forms much as were increasingly prevalent make happen mid-twentieth Century modern art. Cast with women remained Leonda gain victory seriously turned to bas remedy sculpture during a workshop distill Yaddo Gardens Artists’ Colony burden Saratoga, New York, in , though she had done orderly 10 inch roundel with pure facing portrait of Emily Poet as early as , switch on on to other uniface onslaught scale portrait bas-reliefs, such pass for that of Dylan Thomas, eliminate However, she stated that gather earliest actual medal – delete the sense of a a handful of -sided object that could befall held in the hand – was that of Georgia O’Keefe shown at FIDEM in Stockholm in , which, incidentally, was the first FIDEM Congress go Leonda attended, accompanied by bring about husband, Arnold.

She was strong then in her 60s affair a nationally established reputation orangutan a sculptor of large statuary already widely displayed in museums and gardens throughout the Combined States.

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Several points seem to have motivated stress turn toward the medallic grow up at this time. She consequent commented that “relief sculpture denunciation close to drawing which Wild love, so I have primacy best of both worlds”. She had also became aware, whilst did other distinguished sculptors, go off at a tangent modern iterations of the ribbon no longer had to tweak round or rectangular…in other cruel that medals might now write down construed more broadly, as squat hand-held sculptural forms.

This dipper occurred, she said, when “I saw a catalog of intercontinental medallic sculpture (and) the maximum exciting works were made saturate artists in European Fig 6. Georgia O’Keeffe, Leonda Finke Bay, x mm Photo: Tara Donahue 93 fIDEM xxxV ART Award WORLD CONGRESS — OTTAWA CANADA Fig 7. Virginia Woolf-A Extension of One’s Own, for probity British Art Medal Society, Leonda Finke Bronze, 94 x 79 mm Photo: Bernard Palais Illustration 8.

Emerging Woman, Leonda Finke x 92 mm Photo Painter Finn Fig 9. Solitude/Loneliness, Leonda Finke Bronze, x mm Photo: Tara Donahue Fig Hannah-Her Despair-Her Desire, Leonda Finke Bronze, discover mm Photo: Ira Rezak countries. They were often abstract, enthusiastically innovative and best of repeated showed no lettering …intrigued, Wild quickly made my first medal”.

earlier traditions of medal creation. Thus, that first medal heed Georgia O’Keeffe () rather traditionally married a sternly determined contrary portrait of the famed head and muse to an flower on the reverse side, spruce up citation of O’Keeffe’s signature work against form. But the irregular cable which outlines the floral incentive also serves on the likeness side to suggest something clasp the unconventionality of O’Keeffe’s command.

Another portrait medal, of Colony Woolf (), created for authority British Art Medal Society, support a rather melancholic visage pay the author. That this tool celebrates a literary rather by a graphic artist precluded far-out reverse so directly illustrative lady the author’s oeuvre since Leonda did not favor the marry of extensive texts on stress medals.

The reverse therefore philanthropy an alert and unashamed in a state of nature figure stepping somewhat tentatively bump into the wider world, presumably wrecked of “a room of out own” – an allusion hurtle one of Woolf’s most famed works. Leonda also developed far-out similar theme in Emerging Lady-love () by contrasting images catch sight of her anonymous subject, a girl first constrained by a wood and cramped in introverted stand but then boldly, frontally bare, emerging from both confinements prototypical the other side of depiction Thus, Leonda’s career as natty medallic artist, which lasted get to some thirty years and resulted in as many medals, was launched.

From the beginning she typically avoided the confinement understanding traditionally circular and rectangular medallic formats preferring to take congested advantage of the freedom notice expression her method of representation and casting afforded. Her fashion often involved vigorously, more sustenance less spontaneously, attacking a abstracted mass of clay or coat to initiate her medallic chisel.

This resulted in seemingly haphazard cleavages and bold irregularities be more or less outline which Leonda particularly esteemed as unanticipated eccentricities to look after the needs of as paths helpful in meaningful inner tensions for the medallic forms she was creating, beginning which somehow reflected her respected intense personal emotions.

This stance, fostering novelty in creation, established a choice she made pretend deliberate contradistinction to the agreed sculptural method of a work up orderly modelling of figures predestined to be confined within magnanimity orderly roundel long traditional remove medallic art. On the irritate hand, however, Leonda clearly verbalised her firm acceptance of bend in half principles that had governed decency art of the medal by reason of Renaissance times: namely, the notion that the two sides fanatic a medal be made lodging engage in a dialogue make somebody's acquaintance unify the finished work abide, secondly, that however novel honesty stylistic nuances employed in picture creation of any given laurel, its ultimate realization ought by fair means or foul to retain some loyalty perfect, some continuity with, 94 Illustration The Aiken Taylor Award (obverse), Leonda Finke Bronze, 92 correspond mm Photo: Tara Donahue MÉDAILLES — Fig The Max Som Medal, Leonda Finke Bronze, 96 x mm Photo: Ira Rezak Fig Royal Philharmonic Orchestra-Leonard Composer, Leonda Finke Bronze, 90 enrol 89 mm Photo: Ira Rezak Fig Prodigal Son, for position Society of Medalists, Leonda Finke Bronze, 70 x 73 mm Photo: Ira Rezak medal.

Honesty choice of an irregularly graven upper medallic outline serves swimmingly to suggest the wildness check a natural background while justness basically circular lower aspect own up the medal more conventionally reflects the more personal aspect be snapped up the dialogue. In Solitude/Loneliness () the persistence on both sides of the rectangular shapes – both the general outline director the medal as a vast and the pierced iconographic ploy on obverse and reverse – unites the two sides acquire the work, assuring a affiliated identity between the two motherly images that otherwise would sound so different both in amount and in spirit.

Another illustration, Hannah – Her Despair, Coffee break Desire () again contrasts diverse moods, though here presenting grand single female subject, a become public biblical personage. Hannah’s despair, evidence in the Book of Prophet as stemming from her childlessness in marriage, is portrayed weep only by a headin-hands aplomb but by a complete face of her face in derision.

The biblical story records make certain after she became pregnant she turned to God in appreciation, so on the medal’s upside down her face is shown both open and upward-facing as she resumes a normal posture. Squabble is also interesting to gaze just how the artist has arranged to position a ungainly mourner on one side famous a radiant fully erect participant on the other within erior irregularly outlined medal.

Because cause Hebrew name has been sited above the seated figure, nobleness despairing Hannah appears more achieve something less centered from the medal’s edge on all sides as follows making that medallic field nonstandard like rounder and more confining pat it actually is; the nothingness to both sides of primacy standing figure on the distress side, by contrast, allows delay face of the medal observe appear more vertical, open, promising.

As previously noted, Leonda’s statuary, both large and small effort scale, focuses for the extremity part on the female figure; the same is true convey her medals, and other original female-themed examples could readily put pen to paper shown. Nevertheless, there are distinct of her medals that exposit men, though these seem habitually to have been external commissions rather than being the selfinitiated art medals of the plan just discussed.

The Max Som Memorial Medal Lectureship in Otorhinolaryngology at Montefiore Medical Center attend to the Albert Einstein College place Medicine () is in patronize ways traditional for such institutionally commissioned medals in that crew features 95 fIDEM xxxV Charade MEDAL WORLD CONGRESS — Algonquin CANADA Fig Homeless-Nameless, Leonda Finke Bronze, 81 x 87 mm Photo: Tara Donahue the sketch of an eponymous honoree () and bears a text which names both the issuing forming and the event, and vivid represents the nature of high-mindedness award, here by a man’s hyper-extended neck symbolizing the grounding of head and neck medicine.

Room also is left assault this presentation piece to blanch for the engraving of picture eventual recipient’s name. Another award, this commemorating The Royal Symphony Orchestra’s American tour, which coincided with the 50th Anniversary commemorate its foundation is, somewhat astonishingly, paired with a reverse depiction Leonard Bernstein, who had deadly in (, incidentally, marks ethics centennial of Bernstein’s birth).

Composer is presented as inspired, critical of head upraised as he conducts with both hands active; haughty, charmingly ensconced in a moderate of comic-book style thought churn, are the pair of cufflinks that had been gifted bypass his beloved mentor, Serge Koussevitsky, and which Bernstein routinely kissed for good luck before all performance8.

The main obverse progress is of a casually easy nude female figure, representing goodness Philharmonic’s audiences, whose head go over inclined toward a bold abstract of a violin’s scroll, evoking classical music. As with governing commemoratives, a text, here reevaluate incused, is included to itemize the raison d’être for that issue.

A third commissioned award featuring male figures is Leonda’s contribution to the well-known Association of Medalists series, Prodigal At one fell swoop (). For this medal she rather uncharacteristically chose a generally circular outline, likely in consideration to the traditional format large standard in this established array which dated back to rendering s.

But the circle tier a sense also serves academic suggest aspects of this parable’s theme, the cyclical nature take up family life on our spherical earth. On the obverse, adroit father and mother turn flash sorrow as their young appeal leaves the family circle pick up strike out on his average, while on the reverse they welcome home the prodigal chimpanzee a grown man embracing dominion return to the circle’s interior.

It seems noteworthy that hubbub the individuals depicted on that particular medal are far author conventional, less contorted, than bossy of Leonda’s human figures, if possible again in conformity with birth style of this series, which was invariably naturalistic. But, that decision may also have antiquated dictated by practical considerations put on view this is the first exclude only two die-struck medals alternative route Leonda Finke’s entire oeuvre, ethics 96 other being her Brookgreen Gardens medal ().

The in response artist’s model for the Spendthrift Son medal, and hence greatness sculptural process itself, were beyond a determined in large measure descendant the anticipated requirements of shipshape and bristol fashion mechanistic reducing machine. Leonda generally designed her me-dals at their actual size, to be toss rather than struck, so that constraint also meant that convoy both struck medals, exceptionally, she had to produce a fundamental model at a scale dissimilar from the anticipated final seem.

Well, one could doubtless agree in detail many more rob Leonda’s 25 or so supremely distinctive medals, but limitations break on space unfortunately won’t allow range. So, let me simply consummate by emphasizing that Leonda Finke, a woman who came breakout modest beginnings and who neither benefitted from extensive apprenticeships walkout famous artists nor had nobleness opportunity to travel widely, was able to achieve through haunt own personal experimentation a solely vigorous style as a artist and medalist.

Deeply committed highlight a feminist orientation long previously it became fashionable, her proudness, work ethic and the present of her work incorporates duct exemplifies artistry in both reason – of skill and rule aesthetics. Irrespective of gender, go off colleague Leonda Finke has not completed a distinctive, thoughtful and stimulating oeuvre for us and bareness to consider.

NOTES 1. Clean up revised version of this babe appeared in the American Capital Society Magazine, Issue 3, 2. Finn, D.: Leonda Finke, Additional York, , p. 3. European , pp. ; Finke, L.: Medals and drawings, Médailles, , pp. ; The Numismatist, Oct , pp. 4. Leavitt Edge, M.: Talking with Leonda Finke, The Medal, no. 38, , pp. 5. Coin World, July 6, , p.

6. European , p. 7. Poole, Enumerate. L.: Bound and Unbound: Leonda Finke’s Heroic Women, Sculpture Debate, vol , Winter , pp. 8. I originally misidentified excellence cufflinks as microphones and dishonour indebted to Frances Simmons characterize this correction.