About the Arts
Sumner Winebaum, sculptor of hands
By Rose Safran
Two Friends from Italy by Sumner Winebaum
At the Anderson-Soule Gallery in Concord, Winebaum's bronzes blend in comfortably with an attractive setting that also includes hand-crafted furniture by master furniture makers, thereby giving an impression of how the sculpted pieces might fit into a house, especially one with original-design home furnishings.
"I always considered myself a professional," commented Winebaum, who continued, "From the time I sold my first sculpture as a young artist studying in New York City, I thought of myself as a professional. After all, I had sold something."
After a successful career in advertising, which took him from New York City to France and Italy where he worked and lived for several years, becoming fluent in the languages, Winebaum retired early, returned to his family home here on the Seacoast, and continued with the creative work in his selected metier.
In the past, most of his sculpture has been modeled on the human form which he frequently invests with strong movement, sometimes wholly realistic, other times charmingly exaggerated, often with strength tested. Life around him, in particular activities and relationships, family and friends, singly or together, at leisure and at play, even fantasy play - such is the world recreated in his York studio and cast in bronze.
Now, we have another dimension to Winebaum's creativity - one that zeros in on the wide range of expression found in the human hand, a subject that has fascinated many of the greatest artists over the centuries, both in painting and in sculpture.
The current exhibit of a series of sculptures derives its originality from the versatility offered through hands - multitudinous expressions available through twists and turns, designated functions, imaginative arrangements, incorporated objects, to say nothing of hands' inherent lines, bumps, knots, texture. Ten differently-sized digits, two sexes, a flock of joints scared by innumerable occupations, fleshy, veined, smooth, strained -Winebaum takes advantage of the variety and, at the same time, incorporates inanimate objects and even creates surreal situations.
In these works, we note a child's as well as adult hands, hands that are busy holding wires, cupped hands that might encompass a small figure or even a shell or, on the other hand, precariously balance a figure at the tip of a single stretched-out forefinger. In explaining assigning so much creative expression to the human hand, whether relaxed and natural or symbolically engulfing objects or figures, the sculptor quotes Auguste Rodin's comment that there is "emotion in the hand as in the face." In so using the hand, figurative work in sculpture such as this by Winebaum is given another layer of meaning.
In "Dive" an enlarged hand holds a tiny diver, creating striking contrasts, a sense of tension, the little person against the powerful hand of - and that is left to interpretation - for it could be authority, the muscle of the law, parent, the Great Maker. After creating this balancing-act form, the artist asked his foundry if it would work. It did. As for exact interpretation, Winebaum admits that the viewer can enter into the piece and decide. In the amusing work incorporating "Two Friends from Taormina," Winebaum said he found the two curious little clay figures which are turned to bronze here in Italy.
"I used the small hands of a child," the artist said, to create his bronze, "Nest" depicting a bird's nest containing three eggs (with gold patina), the unit proportional to, thereby rendered realistic through these small hands. The nest is modeled on a real one, the eggs on plastic eggs.
Moving about the gallery, one comes to "High Wire" depicting the daring of a trapeze performer, delicately set on a wire strung, taught, one hand on each side of the wire -suggesting chance adventure, a balancing act in space, luck mixed with skill, the game of life, perhaps, without the safety net underneath.
The scale of these works is not large. They are deliberately small, planned to fit into any setting.
"They are designed for space in any room, " Winebaum said of these pieces, which here grace attractive end tables, coffee tables, stands.
I asked about the patina which can be brown or green or have a gilt finish, sometimes, on inspection, appear dotted on. Winebaum points out that today there is so much pollution that a different formula is used. "In recent years, they've had to reformulate the oxides to make the works resistant to pollution." Heat is the major ingredient used. Bronze, he explains, is sensitive to touch and weather.
