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"Slice of Life (Chocolate)"
Bronze/Walnut Sculpture
11" x
11" x 6" |
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![Sculpture by Howard Hitchcock - A Featured Artist for the Lanning Art Gallery [Sedona, Arizona]](images/hancock-title.jpg) |
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| For more than a
generation, Howard Hitchcock has been a
sculptor, devoting decades to perfecting
the art of ceramic shell casting. For
thirty-two years he also devoted himself
to sharing this knowledge as a
university professor of art, teaching a
course in bronze casting for close to
two decades. The ceramic shell mold
industrial casting process that
Hitchcock developed into his own unique
approach to casting sculpture is one
that not only captured his skill and
imagination but also his heart. As the
artist noted in the preface to his
instructional book, Out of the Fiery
Furnace (William Kaufmann, Inc. 1985),
"Ceramic shell casting is the most
spectacular art process imaginable,
particularly at the crescendo of a night
pour when the glowing, golden stream of
liquid bronze flows into the red-hot
shell, bringing it to neon incandescence
in the dark." |
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To help us understand this
exciting process, the preface to Hitchcock's book
begins: "Lost-wax casting is truly an ancient and
venerable art that has been practiced in diverse
cultures and continents over thousands of years. The
most modern approach to that ancient process, dating
from only the mid-point of the twentieth century, is
ceramic shell casting. Instead of being encased in
the traditional solid-block mold that weakens in the
heat of burnout, the wax model is thinly coated with
a ceramic material that is fired by the burnout into
a hard, lightweight shell for receiving the molten
bronze. In both cases, whatever was wax becomes
bronze." Hitchcock's
artistic vision, one informed by humor, satire, and
even commentary, belies the seriousness of his
skills and intellect. Every remarkable bronze he
creates challenges viewers to work out its
cleverness. In the artist's sculptures stylized
human forms blend into the structure of objects,
both imagined and ordinary, and as disparate as
train stations and violins. Hitchcock's human forms
form the spokes of wheels, push over-sized envelopes
and, in a piece entitled, "On the Cutting Edge,"
perch atop a blade. |
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| Howard's sculptures
have been exhibited throughout the United
States, Mexico and Japan. And he is, most
deservedly, included in "Who's Who in
American Art." |
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Click on an image
to see a larger
view.
"Family on the Go"
Bronze/Padouk
Sculpture
12"
x 6" x 2"
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"On the Horns
of a Dilemma"
Bronze/Burmese
Blockwood
Sculpture
17"
x 6" x 5" |
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"Balancing Act"
Bronze Sculpture
22" x 10" x 5"
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"Sonatina"
Bronze Sculpture
19" x 6" x 3" |
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"Highstrung"
Bronze Sculpture
19" x 5" x 3"
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"Search for Meaning"
Bronze Sculpture
22" x
8" x 8"
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"The Opening"
Bronze/Brazilian Rosewood Sculpture
19" x 8" x 5"
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Artist's prices
beginning at
$395.
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Keep an Eye on this
Artist. For confidential artist updates -
click
here to register. |
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