Esther Wertheimer, Large Art Moderne Bronze Sculpture Esther Wertheimer Mother Baby Child Art Deco

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Esther Wertheimer ( Polish, Canadian 1926 - 2016 )
Hand signed Wertheimer
Dimensions: 14.5 X 8 X 5.75 in.

This … Read more Esther Wertheimer ( Polish, Canadian 1926 - 2016 )
Hand signed Wertheimer
Dimensions: 14.5 X 8 X 5.75 in.

This semi abstract figurative bronze sculpture depicts the tenderness and the loving bond shared between Parent and child, mother and infant baby. Mounted atop a smooth high mirror polished circular black marble base.


Esther Wertheimer (née Estera Sheps) (1926 – 2016) was a Canadian Post War & Contemporary woman artist, sculptor and educator. She is known for her semi abstract figurative bronze sculptures, many of ballet and dance, and portrait busts in terracotta. This one has an Art Deco feeling to it.
She was born in Łódź, Poland, and emigrated with her Jewish parents to Canada as a baby. She grew up in Montreal, and studied dance at age eight and later, ballet. She also began to paint as a child and in her youth took art lessons from Alexander Bercovitch (1940-1950), and also with Herman Heimlich and Fritz Brandtner. During the Great Depression she worked to help support her family, while young. Later, encouraged by her former high school art teacher, Anne Savage, she studied art at the School of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (1958-1963), and in 1960, became the founding member and director of the Saint Laurent Art Society in Ville Saint-Laurent (a Montreal municipality), where she taught from her studio, at the YMCA, and organized annual spring exhibitions at Saint Laurent City Hall with local artists. In 1964, she continued her studies at the John Byers School of Sculpture in Montreal.
In 1967, Wertheimer left Montreal and moved to Europe, supported by a Canada Council travel grant and a Borsa di Studio from the Italian government. In 1966, she attended a summer program at the International Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria. From 1967 to 1968, she specialized in sculptural studies at the Florence Academy of Fine Arts (Accademia di Belle Arti di Firenze). Her time in Italy was a turning point in her career. She ceased painting and from then on devoted herself to sculpture, perfecting a bonded bronze medium. She returned to Montreal in 1969, and in 1970 was hired by Loyola College, in Montreal as a professor and coordinator, remaining till 1974. In 1973, she earned her BA at Loyola, graduating in 1973, and attended Goddard College, Vermont, graduating with her MA in 1975. In 1976, Wertheimer executed a series of sculptures depicting sports figures for the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal, one of which was purchased by the Government of Canada's Department of Sports and Recreation for the Sports and Art Collection. In 1977, Wertheimer was included in Marbres et bronzes, an exhibition organized by the Centre culturel canadien in Paris presenting six Canadian sculptors working at the artist colony at Pietrasanta, Italy.During the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's Wertheimer lived semi-annually at the artist's colony and sculpture foundry in Pietrasanta, Italy. Over the years it has drawn celebrated international artists — including Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi, Igor Mitoraj, Joan Miro, Fernando Botero and Niki de Saint Phalle — to work and, in some cases, to live here. Jean Michel Folon, Pietro Cascella, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Beverly Pepper all called it home at various points.
In 1980, Wertheimer began to exhibit her polished bronze figural sculpture in cities in Florida, USA. She traveled to Japan in 1989, seeking exhibitions and commissions, and by 1997 had won nine public sculpture competitions there. During the mid-1980s through to the 1990s, Wertheimer completed numerous public art commissions in Canada, USA and China. In 1991, Wallack Gallery, Ottawa, held a retrospective of her work. In 1992, Wertheimer's Primavera (Democracy), a four-metre bronze sculpture, was commissioned for Fukuoka City Hall Plaza, in Fukuoka, Japan. She was Director and Founding Member of the Saint Laurent Art Association/Society, Ville St-Laurent, QC (1960-1965) and the Sculptors Society of Canada (1985). She died in Montreal on August 18, 2016.
"My life involvement with first dance, music and ballet, and as an artist, sculptor, and recorder of human responses provides rich sources of inspiration. I show people at their peak of creativity and vitality – with lightness, grace, balance, control, straining, reaching, out-thrusting, sweeping movement – capturing the elevation of the human spirit, the beauty of the human form. People. My sculpture always depict people – dancers, athletes, lovers, men and women, family – symbols of new beginnings and caring relationships. That, I believe, is what sculpture is all about.”
Selected works
Primavera (Democracy) (in front of Fukuoka Town Hall Plaza) (1992)
Caftan (at Hakone forest of sculpture), Hakone Open-Air Museum, Hakone, Japan
Seven Dancers (dancing figures) Okaloosa-Walton Community College, Niceville, Florida, USA
Airborne Civic Center Library, Livermore, CA, USA
Children at Play with Hoops
Sculpture of three lithe girls are playing with hoops, one girl appears to be flying.
"Children at Play with Hoops "by Esther Wertheimer in Kyotango, Japan
Selected Awards
Canada Council Travel Grant (1967)
Borsa di Studio from the Italian Government (1967-1968)
Elizabeth T. Greenshields Memorial Grant (1969)
Gold Medal, INT Turismo, Rome, Italy (1977)
EUR Europa Primio, Rome, Italy (1977)
3rd Prize (for Caftan), Rodin Third National Sculpture Competition, Hakone, Open-Air Museum, Hakone, Japan (1989)
International Arts Award, B'nai B'rith Foundation, Washington, DC, USA (1997) See less