Word: nakian
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DIED. Reuben Nakian, 89, prolific American sculptor whose quasiabstract marbles, clay urns, terra-cotta plaques and monumental bronzes were inspired by Greek and Roman mythology; in Stamford, Conn. Nakian's realistic work brought him early fame, particularly his life-size sculptures of Franklin Roosevelt and some of his Cabinet and an eight-foot plaster figure of Babe Ruth...
...hate this age," says Sculptor Reuben Nakian. "It's very cold here. So you have to train yourself to ignore it." For years, Nakian has been training exuberantly at his Stamford, Conn., studio by designing huge, flagrant evocations of Greek nymphs and goddesses (see color opposite). Modern U.S. sculpture in classical themes seems a bit like vodka martinis in Grecian urns. Yet Nakian's polylithic Ledas, Hecubas and Olympias are lusted after by some of the most adventurous contemporary curators and collectors in the country...
Last week, as Nakian approached his 70th birthday, his glowing and explicit Goddess of the Golden Thighs was adding a touch of lust to the Los Angeles County Museum's mammoth "American Sculpture of the Sixties" exhibit. The work, he says, is meant to symbolize "the birth of the universe; like coming out of woman, all life comes out of the female." Also last week, the Art Institute of Chicago opened a 27-sculptor summer exhibit called "A Generation of Innovation." Curator A. James Speyer noted that "works of virtue by many noted sculptors are not included be cause...
Last summer Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art staged a one-man exhibit of Nakian's work that illustrated how his style, as he says, "grew out of me as a tree grows." Born to Armenian immigrants on Long Island, Nakian studied during World War I with Manhattan's Sculptor Paul Manship. By the 1930s, he had won some renown for his idealized, 8-ft.-tall statue of Babe Ruth, his heroic busts of F.D.R., Cordell Hull and other demigods of the New Deal. In the 1940s, he moved on to more remote Greco-Roman themes, explaining...
...Nakian has nothing but contempt for young sculptors, of both pop and minimal persuasions. Nonetheless, he shares many contemporary traits with them. His work is massive, blunt, coarse, vulgar, infested with deliberate clumsiness -like much of pop. At the same time, it can be cryptic and withdrawn almost to the point of paranoia, challenging the viewer to discover much of its earthy sensuality for himself...