32 Piece Alfred Van Loen Liberty vs Slavery Van Loen Bronze Abstract Chess Set Modernist Museum Sculpture, 1960's

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Alfred Van Loen signed 32 piece chess set. In heavy solid bronze.
Rare Chess Game: Liberty versus Slavery

Dimensions:
a) … Read more Alfred Van Loen signed 32 piece chess set. In heavy solid bronze.
Rare Chess Game: Liberty versus Slavery

Dimensions:
a) Joy-Tenderness H. 6 3/16 in. aa) Bondage H. 5 5/16 in.
b) Play-Security H. 5 5/8 in. bb) Strangulation H. 5 7/8 in.
c) The Scholar H. 7 5/8 in. cc) Hurt Helpless H. 7 in.
d) The United Family H. 10 7/8 in. dd) Prisoner-Imprisoned H. 10 1/4 in.
e) Peace-Freedom H. 9 3/4 in. ee) Nurse-Pity H. 8 5/8 in.
f) Laborer H. 7 5/8 in. ff) Hopeless-Damaged H. 7 in.
g) Game-Confidence H. 5 3/4 in. gg) Brutality-Cruelty H. 6 1/4 in.
h) Pride-Protection H. 6 in. hh) Chained H. 5 in.
i) Drummer H. 4 1/16 in. ii) Wounded H. 4 1/4 in.
j) Clarinetist H. 5 3/4 in. jj) Sick H. 4 9/16 in.
k) Cellist H. 4 3/4 in. kk) Crushed H. 4 3/8 in.
l) Accordionist H. 4 1/2 in. ll) Hopeless H. 4 7/16 in.
m) Cymbal Player H. 4 1/2 in. mm) Beggar H. 3 15/16 in.
n) Guitarist H. 4 11/16 in. nn) Despair H. 4 5/16 in.
o) Harpist H. 4 in. oo) Cripple H. 4 9/16 in.
p) Violinist H. 4 5/16 in. pp) Blind H. 4 5/16 in.

This set is in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City
and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. It speaks to the horrors of slavery and the joys of freedom.
it was created during the civil rights movement and while his personal history was of the horrors of World War II, I believe this might also reference the African American experience.

Alfred Van Loen was a prolific artist whose career spanned a half century. He was born in 1924 in Oberhausen-Osterfeld, Germany and sent to Holland to be educated. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Amsterdam. He immigrated to the United States following World War II and taught art at Vassar, Hunter College and Columbia University. He taught at C.W. Post for over 20 years. His work is characterized by a spiritual connection to nature. Van Loen's reputation is built on his works as a direct carver a sculptor who carves into stone or marble without preliminary blueprints, models or drawings. 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. 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 Pablo Picasso and Alexander 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 Nazi 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. 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).
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