Among the most illustrious of Westport’s many famed artists was James Earle Fraser.
He was a sculptor who designed the buffalo nickel, the “End of the Trail” sculpture of a Native American slumped over a tired horse, and the Theodore Roosevelt statue at the Museum of Natural History.
His wife Laura Gardin Fraser was also an internationally known sculptor. She designed the Congressional Medal of Honor, featuring Charles Lindbergh’s likeness.
Matthias Alfen may not be as big a name. But his sculptures are huge.
Take “Man Rising.” for example. The bronze work — a Janus-like figure with a message of resilience and optimism — has been commissioned to be enlarged by collector Michael Marocco.
Created from 60 separate pieces in a Florida foundry, it’s being moved north. When it’s installed in Morocco’s sculpture garden in Redding, it will be the largest new figure of its kind in decades in the state.
One part of “Man Rising …”
Alfen came to Westport by way of Bavaria, New York (where he received a Jackson Polloc-Krasner Foundation grant to study), and Norwalk (where he lived, had a studio and taught at Silvermine). He now lives in Westport.
Art was always in his blood. His grandfather, father, mother and brother are photographers. He chose a different medium.
The physical aspect of sculpting appealed to him. He found early success — the German government bought an abstract piece when he was 22 — but then he gravitated to human figures.
“Man Rising” is one — on a much-larger-than-human scale. The 2 sides are fused. One side shows a man who is beaten down. The other side shows him rising up.
… and the other.
“You either submit or fight back,” Alfen explains. “It’s like where are now. We can be beaten down by technology, AI, loneliness, polarization. But it is a timely message to get back up.”
In a world that is “going insane,” the sculptor says, “art is an antidote against craziness. It brings people together. Art talks about the human condition. That can be very positive, especially for young people.”
Art is “like an orchid,” he continues. “It may not seem essential, but it is.”
InSitu — collector Marocco’s 24-acre sculpture garden is part of 300 protected acres of rock ledges, forest, grasslands and streams, where nature and art meet.
He has worked with designers, craftsmen and plantsmen to combine achitecture, horticulture and sculpture, in 27 garden rooms.
Getting “Man Rising” there will not be easy. The foundry work was done in the hot sun, by Cubans.
“They’re incredible craftspeople,” Alfen notes. “They’ve had great experience in Cuba, keeping their cars from the 1950s and ’60s alive.”
The work has been be cut into pieces, to fit underneath bridges on the long journey from Florida.
Once installed in Redding, it’s back to work for Alfen, in his studio in the Cranbury section of Norwalk, just over the Westport line.
He works in a large barn. It’s a couple of miles, and a century after, James Earle and Laura Gardin Fraser, put Westport on the world sculpting map.
With works like these, we may be there again.
(“06880” is “where Westport meets the world” — including Redding, and the rest of the arts universe. If you enjoy our work, please click here to make a tax-deductible contribution. Thank you!)
Hmmmmm; guess beauty really IS in the eye of the beholder.
This is the trenchant art criticism everyone wanted to read Saturday morning. And watch how Dan Katz does it: He takes a trite adage and, using completely unexpected 180-degree rhetorical whiplash, comments on the work of a local artist. My morning is better now that Dan Katz has shat on someone and shared it with readers.
Are there any days when the Redding sculpture garden is open to the public?