Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 6

David Aronson
Bronze Sculpture Rabbi w Torah Judaica Figure American Boston Figural Modernist

About the Item

Aronson, David 1923- David Aronson, son of a rabbi, was born in Lithuania in 1923 and immigrated to America at the age of five. He settled in Boston, Massachusetts where he studied at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts under Karl Zerbe, a German painter well known in the early 1900s. Aronson later taught at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts for fourteen years and founded the School of Fine Art at Boston University where he is today a professor emeritus. An internationally renowned sculptor & painter, Aronson has won acclaim for his interpretation of themes from the Hebrew Talmud and Kabala. His best known works include bronze castings, encaustic paintings, and pastels. His work is included in many important public and private collections, and has been shown in several museum retrospectives around the country. He is considered to be one of the most important 20th century American artists. At twenty-two David Aronson had his first one-man show at New York's Niveau Gallery. The next year, six of his Christological paintings were included in the Fourteen Americans exhibition at Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art where Aronson’s work was included alongside abstract expressionists Arshile Gorky, Robert Motherwell and Isamu Noguchi. In the 1950s, Aronson turned more toward his Jewish heritage for the inspiration for his art. Folklore as well as Kabalistic and other transcendental writings influenced his work greatly. The Golem (a legendary figure, brought to life by the Maharal of Prague out of clay to protect the Jewish community during times of persecution) and the Dybbuk (an evil spirit that lodges itself in the soul of a living person until exorcised) frequently appear in his work. In the sixties, Aronson turned to sculpture. His work during this period is best exemplified by a magnificent 8’ x 4’ bronze door which now stands at the entrance to Frank Lloyd Wright's Johnson Foundation Conference Center for the Arts in Racine, Wisconsin. In the seventies and eighties, Aronson continued his work in pastel drawings, paintings, and sculptures, often exploring religion and the frailties of man's nature. During this time, in addition to a traveling retrospective exhibition and many one-man shows in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston at the Pucker-Safrai Gallery on Newbury Street, Aronson won many awards and became a member of the National Academy of Design in New York. Two years ago he retired from teaching to work full-time in his studio in Sudbury, Massachusetts. included in the catalog Contemporary Religious Imagery in American Art Catalog for an exhibition held at the Ringling Museum of Art, March 1-31, 1974. Artists represented: David Aronson, Leonard Baskin, Max Beckmann, Hyman Bloom, Fernando Botero, Paul Cadmus, Marvin Cherney, Arthur G. Dove, Philip Evergood, Adolph Gottlieb, Jonah Kinigstein, Rico Lebrun, Jack Levine, Louise Nevelson, Barnett Newman, Abraham Rattner, Ben Shahn, Mark Tobey, Max Weber, William Zorach and others. Selected Awards 1990, Certificate of Merit, National Academy of Design 1976, Purchase Prize, National Academy of Design 1976, Joseph Isidore Gold Medal, National Academy of Design 1976, Purchase Prize in Drawing, Albrecht Art Museum 1975, Isaac N. Maynard Prize for Painting, National Academy of Design 1973, Samuel F. B. Morse Gold Medal, National Academy of Design 1967, Purchase Prize, National Academy of Fine Arts 1967, Adolph and Clara Obrig Prize, National Academy of Design 1963, Gold Medal, Art Directors Club of Philadelphia 1961, 62, 63, Purchase Prize, National Institute of Arts and Letters 1960, John Siimon Guggenheim Fellowship 1958, Grant in Art, National Institute of Arts and Letters 1954, First Prize, Tupperware Annual Art Fund Award 1954, Grand Prize, Third Annual Boston Arts Festival 1953, Second Prize, Second Annual Boston Arts Festival 1952, Grand Prize, First Annual Boston Arts Festival 1946, Traveling Fellowship, School of the Museum of Fine Arts 1946, Purchase Prize, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts 1944, First Popular Prize, Institute of Contemporary Art 1944, First Judge's Prize, Institute of Contemporary Art Selected Public Collections Art Institute of Chicago Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Bryn Mawr College Brandeis University Tupperware Museum, Orlando, Florida DeCordova Museum Museum of Modern Art Print Collection, New York Atlanta University Atlanta Art Association University of Nebraska Whitney Museum of Art Corcoran Museum of Art Smithsonian Institution Portland Art Museum Milwaukee Art Institute Hunter Art Gallery Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts Hebrew Teacher's College, Brookline, Mass. Container Corporation of America Stone Foundation The Johnson Foundation Worcester Art Museum University of New Hampshire Chico State College Gallery Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute Witherspoon Art Gallery Skirball Museum, Los Angeles University of Judaism, Los Angeles Danforth Museum of Art Syracuse University Boston University Selected Solo Exhibitions MB Modern, New York, 1997 Horwitch Newman Galleries, Scottsdale, Arizona, 1996 Louis Newman Galleries, Beverly Hills, 1977, 1982, 1984, 1986, 1989, 1992 Pucker-Safrai Gallery, Boston, 1976, 1978, 1984, 1986, 1990 Mickelson Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1985 (retrospective) Southeastern Middlesex University, Dartmouth, Massachusetts, 1983 (retrospective) Sadye Bronfman Art Center, Montreal, 1982 Towne Gallery, Lenox, Massachusetts, 1982 Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, 1979 (retrospective) American Museum of Jewish History, Philadelphia, 1979 (retrospective) Jewish Museum and National Academy of Design, 1979 (retrospective) Bernard Danenberg Galleries, New York, 1969, 1972 Verle Gallery, West Hartford, Connecticut, 1967 Kovler Gallery, Chicago, 1966 Hunter Gallery, Chatanooga, Tennessee, 1965 J. Thomas Gallery, Provincetown, 1964 Westhampton Gallery, New York, 1961 Rex Evans Gallery, Los Angeles, 1961 Nordness Gallery, New York, 1960, 1963, 1969 The Downtown Gallery, 1953 Boris Mirski Gallery, Boston, 1951, 1959, 1969 Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1946 Niveau Gallery, New York, 1945, 1956
More From This SellerView All
  • Judaica Bronze Sculpture "Rabbi" Figure Jewish American Boston Figural Modernist
    By David Aronson
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Aronson, David 1923- David Aronson, son of a rabbi, was born in Lithuania in 1923 and immigrated to America at the age of five. He settled in Boston, Massachusetts where he studied a...
    Category

    20th Century Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • Large Bronze Sculpture "Virtuoso" Figure American Boston Figural Modernist
    By David Aronson
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Aronson, David 1923- David Aronson, son of a rabbi, was born in Lithuania in 1923 and immigrated to America at the age of five. He settled in Boston, Massachusetts where he studied a...
    Category

    20th Century Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • Bronze Sculpture Charles Dickens Figure American Boston Figural Modernist
    By David Aronson
    Located in Surfside, FL
    I have seen this piece identified as Wizard and as Micawber from Charles Dickens David Copperfield ("something will turn up") Aronson, David 1923- David Aronson, son of a rabbi, was...
    Category

    20th Century Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • Art Deco Expressionist Bronze Judaica Rabbi Sculpture Los Angeles Modernist
    By Peter Krasnow
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Bronze Jewish Rabbi. Original Patina. Art-deco wood carved base. It is signed with initials P.K. and marked "Calif Art Bronze Fdry LA" (California Art Bronze Foundry Los Angeles). it is not dated. PETER KRASNOW (1886-1979), Russian-Ukrainian, American artist painter and sculptor, born Feivish Reisberg, was a California modernist and colorist artist known for his abstract wood sculptures and architectonic hard-edge paintings and drawings which were often based on Hebrew calligraphy and other subjects related to his Jewish heritage...
    Category

    1930s Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • German Expressionist Bronze Relief Plaque Mans Best Friend, a Man and His Dog
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Mans Best Friend C.M. Junghans 1985 This is done in a German Expressionist style. It is bronze over some sort of fill. It depicts a man gentleman and his dog. a Cocker Spaniel or Co...
    Category

    20th Century Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • Clown Holding Teddy Bear, Unique Bronze Expressionist Sculpture
    By Agnes Yarnall
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Agnes Yarnall LePage, began studying sculpture at the age of 6 at the Liberty Tadd School of Modeling. She went on to study with Charles Grafly at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before opening her own studio in the late 1920s, with the support of her parents, Anna B. Coxe and Charlton Yarnall. Over the years, Ms. Yarnall's work included numerous portraits, human figures and animal sculptures. Among her proudest achievements were busts of George Washington and General Lafayette, displayed at the Valley Forge Historical Society, and of Abraham Lincoln, at the Union League of Philadelphia. She also counted among her premier accomplishments busts she sculpted of Ronald Reagan, Jack Nicklaus and Pope John Paul II. One reviewer who had seen her depictions of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Dame Judith Anderson, Carl Sandburg and Sir John Gielgud lauded her work for its ''sensitivity, grace and dynamism," her family said. During her early career Ms. Yarnall studied and worked with such great artists as Boris Blai, Paul Manship and Alexander Archipenko. In addition to her long career in sculpture, she also was an accomplished poet. Her books included Indian Summer, Hesperides and Other Poems and Pandora and Other Poems. In 1987 Ms. Yarnall was presented with the Living Legacy Award as ''Evocatrix Extraordinary" by the Women's International Center, joining such honorees as Dame Judith Anderson, Clare Boothe...
    Category

    20th Century Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

You May Also Like
  • Käthe Kollwitz Bronze Sculpture "Der Abschied" ( Leave )
    By Käthe Kollwitz
    Located in Berlin, DE
    Very emotional sculpture by Käthe Kollwitz ( 1867-1945 ), Germany. Conceived 1940/1941. Bronze dark patinated on granite rectangular base. One of a 50 pieces, cast 1975. Signed down...
    Category

    1940s Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Granite, Bronze

  • Elephant Herd - Bronze Sculpture - Limited Edition
    Located in Pretoria, ZA
    Sculpture of Elephant Herd in bronze, Limited Edition of 10, bronze sculpture on Sandstone base. Small elephant herd of 4 cows and two claves. Inspired by many years in the bush spen...
    Category

    2010s Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Sandstone, Bronze

  • Warthog Bust - Bronze Wildlife Sculpture
    Located in Pretoria, ZA
    Bronze Warthog Bust on Sandstone base H 16 cm x W 13 cm x D 8 cm. Base size 8 x 8 x 4 cm. Edition 2 of 9 - ready for shipping. Meticulously crafted, this bronze artwork captures the ...
    Category

    2010s Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Sandstone, Bronze

  • Beginning Of The Hunt - Masai African Sculpture in Bronze Verdigris
    Located in Pretoria, ZA
    Beginning of the Hunt, Limited Edition of 24 (Signed & Numbered). Bronze sculpture on sandstone base, in Bronze Verdigris. Height 83 cm including base. My art is inspired by Africa a...
    Category

    2010s Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Sandstone, Bronze

  • Ernst Barlach Bronze Skulpture "Der Raecher" ( The Avenger ), 1914
    By Ernst Barlach
    Located in Berlin, DE
    Bronze, brown patinated by Ernst Barlach ( 1870 - 1938 ) Inscribed and numbered on the plinth: E. Barlach 8/8. Stamped with the foundry mark: H.Noack.Berlin. Dimensions: Width: 23.23 in ( 59 cm ), Height: 17.72 in ( 45 cm ). Provenance: Alfred Flechtheim. The Avenger...
    Category

    Early 20th Century Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Bronze

  • Going to the River - Bronze Kudu Bulls - African Antelope Bronze Sculpture
    Located in Pretoria, ZA
    Going to the River - A Journey in Bronze: two Kudu Bulls in cast bronze on Sandstone base. Limited Edition of 12, L 62 cm x H 38 cm x W 20 cm. Crafted in meticulous detail, this pie...
    Category

    2010s Expressionist Figurative Sculptures

    Materials

    Sandstone, Bronze

Recently Viewed

View All