Randall's Urban Architectural Sculptures

My version of a monumental sized concrete Art Deco panel by Picaud- on a Paris France theater.

23″ square nominal size.

The first cast is destinied for a client’s fireplace.

Another view of the completed model with one egg and dart segment, it will take 4 of these to complete the border, only one model in clay was required as it will be molded to produce multiple copies;

Casts will be available this summer in concrete and interior cast-stone both with and without the set of 4 borders it will have (total of 5 pieces)

The wolf head is 20″ across, with the set of 4 egg & dart borders it will be 29″

See the previous entries page link at the very bottom for older views of the progress etc.

Here’s an architectural sculpture you don’t see often, it was from the George Hauck brewery in Kingston NY (1884-1941)
32″ in diameter, 17″ deep depicting a Dutch Landrace goat;

The sculpture was rescued upon demolition in 1941 by a fellow who was a family member of the demolition company owner, it remained in his family’s posession until this year when it was still up for sale and I purchased him via a convoluted path through a contact of the Kingston NY owner in South Carolina.

This had been on Ebay 3 years ago with no buyers for the $4000 sculpture, I had saved the photo and page, then forgot about it till recently when searching for another photo on my drive. I wondered what became of the goat and checked the old Ebay page’s seller and found no feedback that indicated it had sold, so I emailed and asked about it and the rest as they say is history.

After a dozen fruitless calls to various movers, freight handlers and other firms, the third UPSstore I contacted said THEY could handle the pickup, crating, and shipping the estimated 300 to 400 pound sculpture via common carrier. I had been given a quote by another place for sending 3 men out and a truck- 6 hour minimum charge was going to be $1250 PLUS the crate plus shipping, so the UPSstore’s quote was far better.

Their charge was $450 to go out and pick up, load and take the sculpture back to their store, $150 to build a wood crate for it and skid, and then the freight shipping was another $600. Hey, I like to give praise and credit when due and I sure can’t complain about their two charges for pickup and crating, for the amount of time and work it’s certainly a reasonable quote. The store was about 30-40 miles from the seller’s house.

I highly recommend the UPS Stores in general for shipping of this kind, this is the second time I’ve used one like this and while they are individual franchises whose services and rates will vary, calling around will find one who can move, crate and ship just about anything, so go ahead and call them to have that pool table or piano shipped!

Adding the $1200 shipping costs to the $2800 purchase and the $191.40 escrow fee, this wound up being a $4200 sculpture when all was said and done.

The sculpture was part of a story in the Kingston paper in the early 1980′s, below is a scan and I’ll obtain a much clearer copy soon.

As the goat is pretty unique, I doubt this was made in a mold as was typical, it would appear to likely have been sculpted for Mr Hauck as a custom item and this was the original clay model. I should be able to tell when I examine the surface looking for telltale mold seam lines, no matte rhow carefull the workers were when making these terra cotta pieces, I have always been able to find small remnants of the tiny raised seams where the multiple plaster piece molds fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. For the most part they were smoothed away, but small amounts of the seams would always show up in crevases and deep undercuts.

In reviewing possible makers, I find one likely candidate, who was started 4 years before the brewery was built, the other two firms which were major manufacturers on the East Coast came later;

Boston Terra Cotta Co., 1880

Region 2: Mid-Atlantic States
New York

Atlantic Terra Cotta Co. (NJ/Stat Island) ,1897-c. 1927
N. Y. Architectural Terra Cotta Co., (Brooklyn) 1886-1932

There is a Boston VALLEY Terra Cotta Co in NY as well, but they date to 1889

As far as the breed of goat used for the model, my research led me to a gent in the Netherlands who confirmed for me that the goat amost certainly depicts a Dutch landrace Bllly goat about 5 years of age.
The gent mentioned the horns were a little short, but that of course they within the circle of the sculpture- notice that one of the horn tips IS broken off, and of course the limitations of the material- terra cotta meant having to keep them relatively short at the expense of 100% accuracy.

The use of goats in conjunction with bockbeer brewery art and logos over there have been a long standing, so it stands to reason Mr Houck imigrated to the US and started his brewery, and adorned the facade with the familiar art used back home with breweries.

It is interesting to note the breed is now extinct in Germany and had reduced down in 1958 to just TWO animals. Breeders revived the breed since and there are about 1500 now.

From: http://www.landgeit.nl/english.html

The Dutch Landrace (Nederlandse Landgeit) is the original goat race of the Netherlands and shows great similarity with other northwest European landraces as found in Scandinavia or the feral goats in Great Britain. The Dutch Landrace is a medium sized, horned breed preferably with long hair. All colors are allowed except for the typical Toggenburg coloration.

From the beginning of the 20th century imported Swiss Toggenburger and Saanen goats were used for breeding to increase milk production. In 1958 the original population was nearly extinct and had decreased to only two animals. These two animals in combination with highly similar goats found in rural areas were used to create a successful breeding program. Today (2006) the population has increased up to more than a 1500 animals kept by 460 members of the Dutch Breeders Association of the Dutch Landrace (LFNL), most of them living in Holland but also some in Belgium, Germany and France.

Photo was taken after modifying the ears, the older versions are below it.
I felt the ears needed more length but still retaining strength as this most likely would be cast in concrete, so a happy medium between fine delicate detail and the end material being used for the casts are always factors that muct be taken into account in any model- realism v/s practicality. Ideally I’d make those ears wider but wider would mean they’d have to be proportionally taller and then I’d make them leather thin and delicate, that all would be fine if this was to be cast in bronze, but concrete requires more rounded blunted details.
Note too the angle of view changes the expression, he still has a snarl, that’s best seen from a side angle.

View looking slightly up;

Some recent shots in the modelling studio which still being worked on, with a 14 foot cathedral ceiling, 2 windows, large skylight, heavy commercial type floor designed to hold extreme loads- like the one ton of boxed clay in the corner not visible in these photos. A half ton chain hoist also hangs from the ceiling almost out of view. A secondary computer system and 17″ monitor are also in the room to display photos on and use during modelling.

Heavy steel and plank modelling table, a 150# work in progress clay model of a large 30″ diameter multi-piece wolf head is on the easel. Models are normally completely wrapped in plastic to keep the clay moist during the work process. Reference photos, and a heavy duty wheeled rotating modelling stand can also be seen on the right;

Two shots of the basement casting studio, more to be done yet and more was done after these photos, but it’s all going in the direction of greater efficiency and making things easier;

So I did some cleanup work on the rim, ears and face as these areas are starting to firm up and there’s little more to do to them. I also did some preliminary smoothing/finishing of the fur patterning on the right side.
I ‘d better finish up the lower jaw, mouth and teeth real soon since they project out a ways and are getting firm.
I think my moving the face out surgically 1/2″, the muzzle 3/4″, and the eyes in closer did the trick. It’s never easy taking a large butcher knife and cutting an almost finished model, but it’s really so easy to fix the surgery site and it all jsut smoothes right back over invisible- you can’t tell that I had sliced the entire face off just behind the eyes, and then later sliced the muzzle off, and scooped both eyes out carefully so as not to distort the eyes themselves, and then relocated them.

So now I’m going to soon get to the molding section as it’s firming up, I’m still undecided on whether to leave it as a “shape” as is but smoothed, or going ahead and model out the egg & dart design.

I printed out some more photos an hour before planning to go to bed, and I wound up spending another hour or more fixing a few things. I decided the ears were on the small side and down too far, so I enlarged and moved them up a little, may have to go more. I don’t want the ear tips to extend any higher past the rim as they would be much easier to break, I do like like the interaction of models with a background like this with the model extending past the visual bounderies of the background- in this case the rim.

I also re-did the eyes, I think below the cheek bones I need to remove more clay as the face looks “wide”
The fur of course is still just being experimented with, it will not have so many “busy lines”, I’m trying patterns and layering to see what works best.

I now have the one section of egg & dart molding shaped, it will likely be the last portion to be finished due to it’s thickness and that causing the clay to remain quite soft and easily distorted till it firms up more over time.

The wolf head itself is roughl formed to get an idea how much clay it will take and to ensure I have enough on hand to complete this model.
As the model progresses the head shape and form will no doubt see many adjustments and movements when I gather and print out the numerous photos to use for visuals.

I now have the center portion shaped, I’ll have to put the other template on and form the one section of egg & dart molding before I can start building up the wolf’s head.

After this one I’ll need to order another 1,000# 0f clay

I have begun the process by creating two templates to form the shape of the center medallion and the egg & dart border. Here’s the two templates;

After the wolf head, the next planned model is Art Deco again.

A client asked me if I could reproduce this Art Deco panel which is an old original replica of an extant architectural sculpture on a building in Paris France- the Folies Bergere. The design was by Picaud and it appears that these original gilded plaster casts in wood frames come up for sale they have been priced near $5,000 and even higher.

I will begin work on the model soon, probably slightly smaller than the originals which were 26″ square.

Here is the building the much larger concrete original is on;