Thursday, December 6, 2012

Sioux Warrior


Against a clear autumn sky, this is a close-up view of the massive bronze sculpture, Sioux Warrior, which I featured on a post (below) several years ago. It stands at the entrance to Omaha's Joslyn Art Museum. 


Sioux Warrior (2008) by Serbian-born sculptor John David Brcin  (1899– 1983) and Omaha sculptor Matthew Placzek  (American, born 1964). 
John David Brcin was a 30-year-old, award-winning sculptor working in Chicago when architects John and Alan McDonald chose him to create the ambitious sculptural program for the exterior of the Joslyn Art Museum building. While the sculpture on the Joslyn building is Brcin’s masterpiece, one element of his vision was, for various reasons, dropped from the final plan. The artist had proposed that two life-size bronze equestrian statues stand at either side of the main east steps: a Sioux warrior and a Pony Express rider. Of the two, Brcin ultimately completed only a plaster model of the Sioux warrior. 
Fifteen feet high, the 5,000-pound bronze sculpture sits atop a six-foot base of concrete encased in Lake Superior Green granite. The Art Decostyle rearing horse and Indian rider face north.
Using Brcin’s plaster prototype as a model, Omaha sculptor Matthew Placzek recreated the sculpture point by point in clay. The sculpture took its final format in a foundry in Colorado, where about 100 individual bronze pieces were welded together over a stainless-steel infrastructure.

10 comments:

HansHB said...

Lovely post for SkyWatch!

Jim said...

Great choice.
Sydney - City and Suburbs

Sylvia K said...

An awesome sculpture, Raf, and those beautiful, blue, blue skies are the perfect backdrop!! Wonderful captures for the day! Hope you have a great weekend!

Rajesh said...

Fantastic shot.

Leovi said...

Yes, very nice pictures, I really like this frame enhancing the magnitude of this sculpture.

Anonymous said...

How it was made is very reminiscent of the Great Buddha that looks to be solid bronze but is sheets bolted to strips in steel inside.

cieldequimper said...

It's a gorgeous statue though it somehow reminds me of Soviet art because it's so massive.

Liz said...

Wonderful shot! Happy sky watching.

Blue and White

Anonymous said...

As beautiful and breathtaking as Ousmane Sow´s sculptures.

Aaron

PerthDailyPhoto said...

A very powerful sculpture Raf, beautifully shown here.