Lot 27

Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts: The Collection Bernard Goldberg has long been admired as a collector and more recently as a dealer with exceptional taste and a discerning eye. A private collector of American and European art for over forty years, Mr. Goldberg established Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts after a successful career as an attorney and real estate developer. As one of the first boutique hoteliers in New York, he pioneered the practice of displaying museum-quality artworks in his hotels' public spaces and private rooms. In 1998, using his personal collection as inspiration, he launched his retail gallery business, focusing on the leading artists of the Ash Can, Urban Realist, Abstract, Social Realist and Regionalist genres of American Art, as well as superb examples of 20th century design. Featuring over 160 exceptional items from the collections of Mr. Goldberg's New York gallery, highlights of the sales include paintings, sculpture and works on paper by Jacques Lipchitz, Edward Steichen, Elie Nadelman, Marsden Hartley, and Guy Pène du Bois, among others, as well as 20th century decorative items by George Washington Maher, Gustav Stickley, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Samuel Yellin. "In my passion as a collector I have often disregarded the economics of resale typically employed by a dealer. What I have purchased for my gallery are in effect mirror images of my personal collection and I have always delighted in the excitement of discovering, researching and acquiring new works of art. As a collector and as a dealer I strove to get the best, so I was often willing to take risks on prices and to explore new genres that were not necessarily popular at the time. These auctions present a unique opportunity for collectors around the world to acquire a superb range of works that I have selected over time, with a passion for quality and aesthetics."

Max Kalish (1891-1945)

Foundryman

Details

Max Kalish (1891-1945)
Foundryman
inscribed indistinctly 'M KALISH/**' (on the base)--stamped 'MERONI RADICE/CIRE/PERDUE' (along the base)
bronze with dark brown patina
19 in. (48.3 cm.) high

Provenance

The artist.
Private collection, by descent.
Spanierman Gallery, LLC, New York.
Acquired by the present owner from the above, 2002.

Literature

Spanierman Gallery, LLC, 110 Years of American Art: 1830-1940, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2001, p. 42, pl. 33, illustrated (as The Foundrymen).

Exhibited

New York, Spanierman Gallery, LLC, 110 Years of American Art: 1830-1940, October 15-December 31, 2001 (as The Foundrymen).

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Lot Essay

Born in Poland, Max Kalish came to the United States as a child in 1894 and settled with his family in Ohio. A talented youth, Kalish enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art as a fifteen-year-old, receiving a first-place award for modeling the figure. Following graduation, Kalish moved to New York to study with Isidore Konti and Herbert Adams and in 1912 traveled to Paris to continue his studies with Paul Bartlett at the Académie Colarossi and with Jean Antoine Injalbert at the École des Beaux-Arts. By 1915, Kalish returned to America to work on the Column of Progress for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, California.

In 1921, Kalish sculpted his first laborer, "The Stoker," using a Cleveland furnace worker as a model. Kalish continued to sculpt laborers for the remainder of his career. Today the artist is renowned for these bronzes and is considered a premier American sculptor of the early 20th century.

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