| Show r w Th i 1 1 ii i r P 4 f a t tc c W f-W THE STRUCTURAL STEEl I On the right Mr WORKER k Kalish's statue Y j THE DRILLER ELECTRIC tt L V 1 Max Kalish the sculptor whose glorifications of Amen Interesting can itcan working men are stirring the admiration of art f it itt t lovers Sculptures cu by r P 1 t the h e A- A Artist Wh Who 0 Ic 7 cd Yo d iV e- e 1 i w 1 J t Fe Fed Finds In d s H- H His IS i j Inspiration t- t Ion In rf A power THE good of WOODSMAN Mr example Kalish's le of por- por portrayal portrayal the they 7 h e Ph Physical I of stalwart physical strength in vigorous action 1 P Perfection f d er ec t- t Ion t tJ fr F w of Grimy M I i Overall a U MERICA is a vigorous and rest rest- restless rest rest-i AMERICA less young giant lie bends his broad back to the building of cities and the laying of railroad tracks The red glare of foundry furnaces burns bums burnson burnson on the washed sweat-washed muscles of his half half- naked half naked body the crisp air of the forest foret plays with his tousled hair as the pun pun- pungent pungent pun pungent gent chips fly from his ringing axe His ilis Old World brothers have watched him at his work amazed at his energy and frankly envious of his Yes you can put skyscrapers together and throw bridges across wide rivers busy with ships and tie a great land to- to together together to together gether with ribbons of steel but look at yourself You are just a busy un- un unbeautiful unbeautiful beautiful un-beautiful beautiful brute Your fingers are too thick to write with the pen or paint with the brush or draw music from the strings of the lyre I You are not an artist artist and there is no art in the things you do That in a manner of speaking has been the attitude of a world that has looked upon the giants giant's calloused hands and challenged him to make any real contribution to art or to find anything artistic in his bis strenuous ous life Many of his sons have taken up the challenge but none so BO courageously and aId effectively as a young man whose glorification glori glori- glorification glorification of the Ameri American an workingman in bronze and marble has the th rest of the world unsure of its taunts hurled at the towering young Colossus and his own countrymen amazed at the beauty to be found in an industrial civilization His name is Max Kalish and he has climbed into world-wide world prominence from the tumultuous of the Great American Melting Pot His nis an- an anI ancestors ancestors an ancestors were Polish but he be isa is a real product of American industrialism born I in Cleveland a short thirty five years ago And just just how bow has this man so BO forcefully force force- forcefully forcefully fully flung back the worlds world's challenge that America is too fisted coarse fisted for the gentle genUe pursuits of art art By mod modeling ling a universally recognized beauty in bronze sculptures of the American laborer at his hia the tasks tasks farmer holding to the handles of his plow the ironworker beating white hot white t metal with his heavy sledge the woods woods- woodsman woodsman woodsman man felling trees with his axe the steel steel riveter pounding the steel skeletons of skyscrapers with his chattering gun In Paris mecca for the artists of tho tl o world his exhibitions have created a sensation We We were wrong the critics have exclaimed There IS beauty in America It lives beneath the tho mill mill- stacks mill stacks th that t belch belen forth clouds of black smoke and flame red at night and in Inthe inthe the din and grime that have surrounded the giant Kalish has shown it to us And in America the tho exhibitions of Kalish's work have revealed a people to themselves For this young man has bas has caught caught the spirit of America as no one else has quite been able to catch it it His llis creations have been hailed as examples of an art that is wholly American sin American sin sincere in- in cere sere authentic and untouched by any suggestion of Old World influence The American attitude toward sis toward the art of Max Kalish is well expressed in the words wards of eminent critic who an said said These figures are as true as life but they are f strangely artistic and beautifuL beau beau- They somehow combine combine com com- bine bine the and the ideality that has lain undiscovered undiscovered c covered in the sweating grunting grunting g bodies of the men p who do the hard work of an industrial nation jELIs The young sculptor himself himself him- him himself self is something of a sur surprise sur- sur prise He looks and talks less like famous world a master maser mas- mas master t ter er of n an extraordinary technique tech- tech r pique than like a healthy healthy American who has a job andis and is His doing it without bluster His dress is notably busi busi ness no ness no no cutaway coat no ne flowing Rowing flowing tie no topped cloth shoes shoes his talk is quiet unaffected un- un unaffected affected affected a United United States Heis Hois Ha Ho is short but upstanding The the breadth of his shoulders and the depth of his chest reflect the physical power of the little bronze men he creates He II wea hi 1 fi y Yes my people were workers he explains They were not artists and I cannot say that the ability to draw or model was as born barn in me though it i imay may have been At the age of twelve I went into the shops and factories as a a laborer When I was a child of six years I Iwas Iwas Iwas was fascinated by the figures of men menat menat menat at work Even then I tried to put on paper some Bome of the things I have since been able to express in bronze and marble And when I became a part of the country's industrial life I knew that the happiest moment of my life would come when I could create in art the tho beauty and drama that I saw in workers Kalish tells of his art education education- education four years in the Cleveland School of Art two years at the National Academy of Design in New York and two years at the Ecole de dec de- deBeaux Beaux Arts in Paris Paris- Paris and he h dismisses the sacrifice and struggle struggle gle glo of years with the reply No there was no one to pay for tor this I had to earn the money Just how he ho was asked did you come to develop the unusual technique that critics are pleased to call the glorification of tho American American work work- workman workman man e f Well replies Kalish feeling the thin things I did I watched men swing heavy hammers on white-hot white bars of steel I tried to analyze the motions of men digging ditches o I studied the muscles a s s sPRY PRY a w i irr h I-c I 4 t v r I II I rA d S kir kirS kirT T that rippled in their t he i backs and arm arms s and nd v chests i And I ww learned that tf h the Ameri Amerl- American American can work work- workman workman V Ja man is r c dis dis- dis distinct dis type type- type THE IRON FORGER by man many critics one of the s sturdier t u r die OG n r the the sculptures for which American labor has furnished the r n more nore beau beau- beautifully formed physically than most other races of men I 1 saw him upstanding in- in independent independent in independent dependent proud to do hard work the work mingling of many bloods in the industrial indus indus- industrial industrial trial spirit of America I feel that the labor type found in inthis inthis inthis this country is s as fine and vigorous a typo for sculptural art as there is to be found anywhere in the world that the American work worker r is as great a figure in modern art as the Greek athlete was in his time The figure of a pourer in a Cleveland steel foundry was my first industrial sculpture I 1 Iwas was still a student in the the Cleveland School of Art and in my fre- fre frequent fre frequent frequent quent visits to some of the tho city's indus indus- industrial industrial trial plants I was struck by the powerful and symmetrical symmetrical physique of ofa a man Lie Ho was stripped to the waist and protected from the molten metal by a thick leather apron worn over the grimy trousers that clung to his sweat soaked legs I made several rough pencil sketches superintendent of him and arranged with the of the plant to have him pose poso for me I modeled his body in a statu statu- statuette statuette statuette ette of of f clay and md captured something of the tho vigorous beauty and I had long wan wanted d to express When this sculpture was exhibited in Cleveland in 1914 it created a sensation not only among artists but among per per- persons persons sons who with no special appreciation of artistic expression saw beauty and drama in a true-to-life true figure of tI a laborer on the job Kalish lad gad as one enthusiastic critic then said sid Struck at ue 96 br b sawn me IDeo L the root of American life which is in inthe inthe inthe the last analysis industrial and com com- commercial commercial com com- commercial mercial Thia statuette marked Kalish as a ayoung 8 young artist of promise but he was too absorbed in his idea to give much thought to the acclaim that that soon led to commissions to model the the late President Warren G Harding then a senator the then Secretary of War Newton D Baker and several other men prominent in national life When America went into the World War the young sculptor threw his nm- nm ambition am ambition to the winds and enlisted in the army He Ho wanted to serve in France but Uncle Sam SamI had other uses for his talent talent L a ahe he he n became one of the Y best M ENGINEER THE LOCOMOTIVE EN- EN EN A A statue for for I whose model Mr Kalish went to an engine engin cab c plastic surgeons in the world and restored the shell torn shell faces of many an unfortunate unfortunate unfortunate nate doughboy For nearly two years he did plastic surgery in the army general hospital at Cape May New Jersey When he was discharged in inS S eny 1919 he went en ent en- en y- y t L h u s i a s t i cally catty back to his dream of glorify glorify- glorifying glorifying glorifying t ing the American laborer in death death- deathless deathless deathless less bronze inest of I went back to tion the mills and 1 A the factories and the foundries he s said id I watched and sketched the structural structural steelworker steel worker on the skeletons 01 o skyscrapers and the themen themen themen men in the railroad yards I made bronzes of the best types I could find In one group of three workmen which I called Toils End I tried to re- re reproduce reproduce re reproduce produce and dramatize the fatigue and the grime of rough railway laborers The late Warren S Stone grand chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engi- Engi geers Engi wished to buy it for the directors room o 0 oI the brotherhoods brotherhood's bank I 1 want this he said to put in the bank so that some of ny men will not forget where they came from Just why Kalish was asked do you think these bronze statues of yours get cinder under the skin and into the soul n i M Clad Toilers 11 of the average American as well as the scholarly critic of art Because said the young man with the ring of conviction in his voice the only expressions of art that have lived through the centuries are those that speak the language of their time If America is to have a great art it must be an expression of our time and age which is industrial The Greeks expressed their time in inthe the famous sculptures of the figures of heir mythical gods chiseled in the mold of the men and women who lived then During the Italian renaissance the Church was the patron of art ent-day ent America Americ the captain of industry who has risen from the ranks of a gling filing struggling populace is the natural and out out- outstanding outstanding standing patron of art I could not exhaust the types that are worthy to be done in bronze in years and years of steady effort effort and the American scene holds a boundless wealth of material for tho those who can find the peculiar and genuine beauty to be found in it it II We have been busy building cities and railroads and in making a thousand and andone one things necessary to our vigorous manner of living but a new renai renaissance nce of art is before us us art that will be recognized universally because isa there is a wondrous core of beauty in the virile American progressive force typified in the Ameri Ameri- can workingman Kalish is not what critics are pleased to call calla a queer genius able to work workout u- u JA out his ideas and his ideals in only rough Jin vigorous and beautiful creations in jw bronze Isis His I- I feminine nudes in both bronze and marble are delicately beau beau- beautiful sculptures quite as appealing his as statuettes of workingmen Perhaps his best known work in marble is The Greatest Love a group of o- o ov v three fi fig father ures-father ures father mother and child This group is not at all in the sturdy technique of his figures of workers but is modeled in the soft contours so suited to the artistic expression of the tender tender tender-nes nes of human affection Undoubtedly the example of Kalish's hs h's art that ii has k made mado 1 the greatest 2 stir tir in the world of art is his big most interpretation unusual in- in of Jasus in a bronze ette statuette He statu statu- calls it The Christ and be- be because cause it is not the gentle universal idea of ofa a suffering long Christ extraordinary V Ui- Ui nary interest has centered in this piece of work vork daring Tt 2 J It is isan an aggressive somewhat Saviour angry striding over the world Indig nation burns n His Ilia eyes and His nis bearded jaw CT is i- i iti ti- ti thrust forward in a militant nero ner manner lIe is fighting sin not patiently man man- pleading with witha a world that doubts his lIis doctrines |
