AMANDA MARKEL'S MARVELOUS WILDLIFE WORK IS WINNING OVER NEW COLLECTORS.
FROZEN IN TIME
Collector's Focus: Western Sculpture
Bronze sculpture has had a long and passionate history with many segments of American art, but none quite like Western art, where bronze has been elevated by a century of iconic castings. Consider Frederic Remington’s Broncho Buster, Charles M. Russell’s A Bronc Twister, Charles Schreyvogel’s The Last Drop, Cyrus Dallin’s Appeal to the Great Spirit or James Earle Fraser’s The End of the Trail. These are works that are so famous that even novice Western art fans know them, if not by name then certainly by sight.
Not only is there a long history, but there is sustained support: museums acquire Western bronzes, auctions offer them to bidders, galleries represent sculptors and host bronze shows, and even many of the groups, like the Cowboy Artists of America and the Russell Skull Society, put sculptors on equal footing as the painters. This broad and enduring appeal of Western bronze is baked into the genre’s DNA in a fascinating and unique way that is still being felt today, especially with new and up-and-coming artists.
Consider Amanda Markel, whose marvelous wildlife work is winning over new collectors with her clever arrangements of ideas and forms, and also her sensitive portrayal of her subjects. Markel’s Mountain Heart is her first large-scale sculpture, which is already one of her most popular bronze works. It has already led to new commissions, including one from the Loveland High Plains Art Council that will allow the artist to expand the design to create two more wolves.
In a short story titled A Story of Beauty from Brokenness, Markel writes about the work: “Silhouetted by the rising moon, the Bridger Mountain Range is depicted within a life-and-a-quarter-sized bronze wolf. Through fractured earth and relentless pressure mountains are formed. The great beauty and strength created by this force of nature echoes our own journey of transformation. Each of us has experienced deep brokenness and crushing pressure. Yet, these very things have formed mountains within us, forces of strength, tenacity, and courage. Mountain Heart stands as a reminder that out of our brokenness comes undeniable beauty.”
PUBLISHED BY: WESTERN ART COLLECTOR
All rights reserved: A.G. Markel