Back Room Gallery: California Sculpture Exhibition

Throughout his life as an artist, Merrell Gage was also an instructor, teaching at Chouinard Art School, and spending 33 years on the faculty of the University of Southern California. Among Gage’s best-known works are his monumental study, Lincoln the Student; the Lincoln Memorial at the Kansas State Capitol in Topeka; bas-relief works at the Southern California Edison and Times-Mirror buildings in Los Angeles; and other works in the Los Angeles area. Gage’s St. Francis of Assisi is a superb example of the artist’s work in bronze, featuring the saint tenderly holding a bird with a deer calmly nestled in front. A beautiful rendition of this important religious icon.

We also are featuring Nina Saemundsson’s smaller-scale sculptures. This is a rare opportunity to view the artist’s oeuvre with a large selection of her works on exhibit. Works in ceramic, clay and terra cotta are among the sculptures on exhibit. Once one of the most well-known and sought-after sculptors among Los Angeles collectors, celebrities, and socialites, and in 1942 said to be “among the very few good sculptors working west of the Mississippi” by Arthur Millier in the Los Angeles Times, Nina Saemundsson was as comfortable creating large-scale public figural works as she was sculpting smaller, more personal portrait busts and figures.

Julia Bracken Wendt is widely considered to be one of the best woman sculptors working in California soon after the dawn of the 20th century. Few women artists ranked equally with their male counterparts in the early 1900s, but one who did was Julia Bracken Wendt. Principally sculpting portrait busts, statues and bronze plaques and medallions, Wendt earned a sound reputation over her career, winning praise as the “foremost woman sculptor of the west… taking her place indisputably among the foremost sculptors of the day, whether men or women.” (Elizabeth Waggoner, Los Angeles Times, 1893). Wendt’s circa 1905 The Four Seasons is an art nouveau bronze masterwork, beautifully proportioned and featuring a shining sun and a partially clothed couple draped in sweeping fabric with the seasons named in Latin around them. A true magnum opus.

Our sculpture exhibition is the first time that an emphasis on sculpture in California has been presented to the collecting community. We hope you enjoy this sweeping survey.