Alfred Van Loen, Grand Kabuki Stainless Steel Abstract Brutalist Sculpture

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Alfred Van Loen 1978 (1968 in casting?) signed 18 1/2" x 5 1/2" abstract stainless steel sculpture "Grand Kabucki", mounted … Read more Alfred Van Loen 1978 (1968 in casting?) signed 18 1/2" x 5 1/2" abstract stainless steel sculpture "Grand Kabucki", mounted on wood base, overall size 21 1/2" x 7"

If there are any gaps in Van Loen's life as a U.S. citizen, they come in the early-1950s when he abandoned the Bohemian life of a young, promising New York artist and traveled to Mexico and briefly to Europe. In 1958, he married Helen Roberts (his second marriage ended in divorce and his first marriage, in pre-war Europe, is shrouded in mystery). ....Another room, the dust-free vault, contains a representative array of the work for which he is best known. Van Loen's reputation is built on his works as a direct carver a sculptor who carves into stone without preliminary blueprints, models or drawings. "They are a waste of time," he says. "I never start a piece until I see it finished in my mind." In all of these endeavors, Van Loen is a man in love with the materials. He is an artist who is part scientist, part architect, part explorer and part inventor. "I can only take credit when I feel I have taken a piece of nature and returned it to a natural form giving it just a different kind of life. And then I am happy about it." Van Loen looks sturdy and robust, despite recurring bouts of ill health related to diabetes. He is a tall, lean man whose strong face is chiseled with elean lines across his forehead. His translucent, gray-blue eyes are set beneath well-defined brows, and his head has the craggy but proud look of a Bighorn ram, his graying hair sweeping in a single curl behind each ear. He is a man of uninhibited confidence and ego, displayed in a voice still accented with German that booms out each sentence. But he is also a creature of humility groomed by his awe and reverence for God's work, for the art of every living thing. Van Loen is a prolific and steady worker with uncompromising ideals personally and professionally. He is a teacher who is fair but not lenient. He is a father who is playful but not unmindful of his responsibilities as a parent. wife - Van Loen further isolated himself from the cultural capital and "the sickness of the art world in New York City." Since then, Van Loen has become a bigger star in a smaller galaxy, with a devoted following of patrons and students. Whether casting medals, drawing in unbroken lines (similar to those of Picasso and Calder), painting in watercolors or carving stones and wood, Van Loen is the quintessential craftsman. The real Van Loen is in all of his work. He finds endless lines of continuity and form in the trees and birds and plants that surround him. His two lives. One begins in Germany, where he was born in 1924. The other picks up in 1947 when he arrived in New York. At age six, he says, his wealthy, Jewish parents Karl and Hedwig Lowenthal, owners of a sporting good store sent him to school at a Dominican cloister in Venlo, Holland. In 1938, forced to flee Nazi persecution in Germany, the family moved to Amsterdam, where Alfred joined them. A small carved crucifix which he produced caught the eye of a sponsor who enrolled him in the Royal Academy of Art in Amsterdam in 1941. Surrounded by the cruelty and destruction of war, the young artist became involved in the underground, spying and distributing anti-Nazi pamphlets. Betrayed by his best friend, he was arrested by the Gestapo and spent 16 months in Auschwitz. When he got out, he says, he had only 72 pounds distributed on his 6-foot, 2-inch frame. He did not expect to live. AFTER HIS RECOVERY, he changed his family name, Lowenthal, to Van Loen and returned to the Royal Academy to finish the formal and classical training in anatomy, architectural drawing, pottery, carpentry and casting. By the time he graduated, the war was over, and he decided to come to the United States. When Van Loen talks about this part of his background, the details are sketchy, sometimes contradictory. He does not dwell on that period of his life, and he will not be pressed for specifics. "People should never forget the atrocities of that war," he says. "But they should not continue, living with the memories of it." There are happier memories of his life in the United States, which began April 4, 1947, when a rebuilt troop transport brought 800 emigrants, including the 22-year-old Van Loen, to New York.
Alfred VAN LOEN (1924-1994) German/Dutch/American

Birth place: Oberhausen-Osterfeld, Germany
Profession: Sculptor, educator
Studied: Royal Acad. Art, Amsterdam, Holland, 1941-46.
Exhibited: PAFA Ann., 1950, 1954, 1960; NAD, 1964; WMAA,1957, 1967; Emil Walters Gal., NYC, 1968; Stony Brook Mus., 1968; Heckshere Mus., Huntington, NY, 1971; Harbor Gal., Cold Spring Harbor, NY, 1970s. Awards: first prize, Village AC, 1949; Louisa Robbins Award, Silvermine Guild Artists, 1956; first prize sculpture, Am. Soc. Contemporary Artists, 1964.

Member: AEA; Am. Soc. Contemp Artists; Am. Crafts Council; Long Island Univ. Pioneer Club; Huntington Artists Group.

Work: MMA; MoMA; Brooklyn Mus., NY; Nat. Mus., Jerusalem, Israel. Commissions: brass fountain, James White Community Center, Salt Lake City, UT, 1958; Peace Window, Community Church, New York, 1963; Crescendo, State Univ. NY Agric. & Tech. College Farmingdale, 1969; Jacob's Dream (brass), Little Neck Jewish Center, NY, 1970; bronze & acrylic portrait of Guy Lombardo, Hall of Fame, Stony Brook, NY, 1972.

Preferred media: stone, acrylic.
Publications: "Simple Methods of Sculpture," Channel Press, 1958; "Instructions to Sculpture," C.W. Post College, 1966;
"Origin of Structure and Design," Hamilton Press, 1967;
"Drawings by Alfred Van Loen," Harbor Gallery Press, 1969.
Teaching: instructor, Hunter College, 1953-54
instructor, North Shore Community ACr., NY, 1955-61;
asst. professor sculpture, C.W. Post College, Long Island Univ., 1962-. See less