What’s New

Gunther Stilling’s forty years as a sculptor are being celebrated in a major retrospective throughout the city of Florence, Italy. Eighty of Stilling’s bronze, aluminum, and marble works will be shown at the Palazzo Medici Riccardi and in various outdoor spaces throughout the city. Terra Incognita opens May 2, 2013, and will run through May 28, showcasing work that explores the hidden interior dimensions of each of us. Stilling’s work Handshake can be seen in Newport News at City Center.

Romolo Del Deo has been selected to create the Provincetown Fishermen’s Memorial, a public monument honoring the long fishing tradition in Provincetown, Massachusetts. In this video, Del Deo describes the process of creating any public sculpture, including his Melpomene in Newport News, from the initial stages of drawing out ideas to managing the construction of a lasting public monument.

Carol Capó, Executive Director of the Newport News Public Art Foundation, makes the case for how the community benefits from the wide variety of public art that the Foundation has brought to the city in this op-ed piece published in the Daily Press.

Gunther Stilling's Handshake, a striking new landmark for the Peninsula's "central business district," was unveiled Thursday, March 28, 2013, at the traffic circle on Thimble Shoals Boulevard at the entrance to City Center and followed by a reception at Virginia Company Bank. Read the Daily Press article about the unveiling and watch the 13News story.

Handshake, by Gunther Stilling, was installed on a blustery Monday for its unveiling on Thursday, March 28th, 2013. Watch the Newport News Public Art Foundation’s chairman Bobby Freeman talk about the eight year process of bringing the hands to the traffic circle at City Center in this Daily Press video, and read the article here.

The Daily Press introduced our collection of fourteen installed sculptures in this full-page spread in anticipation of the unveiling of our latest addition, Handshake, on March 28, 2013. Get basic facts about each sculpture and use the map to guide your visit to the various locations. Visit our Take a Tour page for more detailed information and access to the Foundation's audio tour where you can hear the sculptors speak about their work.

When sculptor María Gamundí visited Newport News in the fall of 2012 to scout out Kettle Pond as the site for her new creation Selene, she also spent time with sculpture students at Christopher Newport University, the LifeLong Learning Society at CNU, and art and Spanish classes at Hampton Roads Academy. An article about her visit to HRA appears in the recently published Winter 2012/2013 issue of HRA’s magazine Navigator.

25 international artists, including Inger Sannes, sculptor of Elements in Newport News, and 15 researchers from the Oskar Klein Institute at Stockholm University brought together the scientific method and the artistic process to explore how 50 years of research has fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe – from one galaxy in a constant universe to an ever-expanding, changing universe of billions of galaxies. How can we understand and interpret this new knowledge? How can art provide perspective on this new universe? The artistic results of these collaborations will be exhibited at the Edsvik Konsthall Gallery in Stockholm, Sweden from March 23-April 14, 2013.

Workers installed Lee Tribe’s abstract creation on Warwick Boulevard; the wide median between Yates Elementary and Peninsula Memorial Park is a good place for a piece that gives the intangible of time a three-dimensional presence, with sweeping arcs, busy intervals, and a shape with no beginning and no end. Making it happen required a lot of partners, so thanks to Advex Corporation, Hampton Roads Crane & Rigging, Cable Associates, engineer George Cornwell, Peninsula Memorial Park, Advanced Electrical, Stan Cairns and John Cryer Concrete for their help. While this newest piece of public art is located on public land, it is funded by private donations. Read more about the process of bringing Time to Newport News in this article by the Daily Press.

The remarkable fruit of four decades spent creating and speaking through beauty will be celebrated at Messenger of the Spirit, a retrospective exhibition of the work of Helaine Blumenfeld OBE opening April 13, 2013, at Salisbury Cathedral in England. Blumenfeld’s Spirit of Life in Newport News is a stunning illustration of both the artistic gifts that made Blumenfeld one of the foremost contemporary sculptors and her long quest to communicate “through the visual, imaginative, tactile and at an emotional level,” as the exhibition’s release explains. The exhibition runs through September 8, 2013.

Romolo Del Deo’s The Beauty of Time spent 2012 on the road as part of The Tides of Provincetown, an exhibit showcasing the importance of the Massachusetts arts colony. Beauty has come to rest at Connecticut’s New Britain Museum of American Art as part of A Joint Venture: The Collection of Thomas and Kathryn Cox until June 2, 2013. Del Deo is the sculptor of Melpomene in Newport News.

Newport News artist and Foundation Board member Gregory Henry is among those whose work is shown in Timehri Transitions: Expanding Concepts in Guyana Art, an exhibition with a distinctively Caribbean flavor at the Wilmer Jennings Gallery in New York until March 9, 2013.  Henry teaches sculpture at Christopher Newport University; his Monument to Service can be seen in Newport News.

How does a beautiful idea become a stunning sculpture? In stages. Working in her studio in Pietrasanta, Italy, sculptor María Gamundí first created a small plaster model of Selene, which traveled to Newport News, Virginia, to show the community what will be coming to a lovely spot in the city. Here, she takes the next step, using the plaster model for reference as she makes a one-meter tall version in clay over a metal frame. She explains that this interim step is necessary — that she can’t simply enlarge the small model verbatim to create the two-meter high final, marble version – because as a piece becomes larger the perspective changes and adjustments may need to be made to their relative size and relationship to maintain the harmony of the whole. María is documenting the process of creating Selene, so watch for updates.

In October 2012, María Gamundí introduced Newport News to a model of Selene, the lovely, serene creation that will soon take up residence in Kettle Pond, overlooking the James River. Gamundí, one of the foremost figurative sculptors working today, met with the community and talked with students at Christopher Newport University, the LifeLong Learning Society at CNU and Hampton Roads Academy. Now back in Pietrasanta, Italy, she will begin working on a larger-than-life version of Selene in Carrara marble mined near her studio.

Captain’s log: Earthdate 12/10/12. Position: North Atlantic, latitude 40.0094°, longitude -30.1702°. Speed: 16.9 knots. The vessel HLL Baltic is en route from La Spezia, Italy, to the port of New York. Among the thousands of containers stacked on its deck is one holding two giant, cast aluminum hands by Gunther Stilling. They will come together to form Handshake in the traffic circle at the entrance to City Center in Newport News, Virginia.

Workers at Advex Corporation in Hampton are making sure Time by Lee Tribe will withstand weather at its new location on Warwick Boulevard in Newport News. Here, it sports a new zinc coating, applied after sandblasting. Next step: several coats of bright silver paint and finishing clear coat. Advex is donating its services to get Time ready for its January 2013 installation; the firm’s specialty is precision metal fabrication and testing.

The centerpiece of a new city park in Charlotte, North Carolina, will be a sculpture by Richard Hunt, whose Build a Dream anchors a city project in Newport News. Hunt’s stainless steel work will pay homage to Romare Bearden, for whom the park is named; The New York Times called the Charlotte native "one of America's pre-eminent artists.”

The only way to way to figure out the perfect angle for a sculpture is to try it. With the expertise of Advex Corporation, Hampton Roads Crane & Rigging, Advanced Electrical Service, John Cryer Concrete and construction manager Stan Cairns on hand, the bottom portion of Lee Tribe’s Time spent a cold November morning at the site in front of Peninsula Memorial Park. Since then, the base has been poured and the lighting installed, while the sculpture is getting a protective silver coating at Advex.

Kettle Pond, in beautiful Mariners’ Museum Park, will once again have a sculpture to call its own – this time a monumental marble by world-renowned figurative sculptor María Gamundí. Long time residents will remember that Kettle Pond was formerly the home of Shouting Boy by Harriet Hyatt Mayor, the sister of famed American sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington. Gamundí’s new work, Selene, will join several works in the Park and the Mariner’s collection by Huntington, who, with her husband, founded The Mariner’s as well as Brookgreen Gardens and the Huntington Library. In late October, Gamundí came to Newport News to see Kettle Pond, meet the community, and talk to art students of all ages at Hampton Roads Academy, Christopher Newport University and the Life Long Learning Society at CNU.

Sculptor Lee Tribe, creator of Time, the new sculpture to be installed in midtown Newport News on Warwick Boulevard, came to meet the sculpture’s new neighbors. 180 students at Yates Elementary School, who will pass by the nearby sculpture often, also got to meet and talk to Tribe about his life and work. See a video about his school visit here.

Again this year, the annual DUMBO arts festival, running Sept. 28-30, 2012, will showcase the work of husband and wife artists sculptor Masaru Bando and lithographer Rica Bando. The festival celebrates the lively arts scene in a section of Brooklyn known by the acronym for its landmark (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass). Masaru Bando’s Memory of Green and Natural can be seen in Newport News.

Abstract expressionist Richard Hunt’s work will be exhibited at the Brauer Museum at Valparaiso University in Indiana. Along with items lent by Hunt, works from the permanent collection and local collections will be on view from August 21 – November 16, 2012. Hunt’s Build a Dream can be seen in Newport News.

Romolo Del Deo, sculptor of Melpomene in Newport News, is exhibiting at the Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown, Massachusetts, August 10 – 26, 2012. Among the work in Bronze and Steel Reformed are maquettes for Del Deo’s recent commissions, including Rose Dorothea, displayed in the town library, and a major outdoor work honoring local fishermen.

A new sculpture by Gunter Stilling is taking shape in Fonderia Artistica Da Prato, in Pietrasanta, Italy. The piece may have a futuristic feel, but the process is the same lost wax casting method that was state of the art when Michelangelo’s masterpieces were made in this town of artists and artisans. The pieces that will become Handshake are being cast, welded together, fitted on a stainless steel skeleton and finished, getting ready for a trip to its new home in Newport News in Spring 2013.

Helping the public enjoy and appreciate the growing collection of public art in Newport News is one of the Foundation’s priorities — and it just got a boost in the form of a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts. It’s our first-ever support from this agency, which is funded by the state of Virginia and the National Endowment for the Arts, and we’re looking forward to putting it to work in our education and outreach. Learn more about the arts in Virginia at the Commission’s website arts.virginia.gov.

Romolo Del Deo, sculptor of Melpomene in Newport News, unveiled Rose Dorothea in Provincetown, Massachusetts. The bronze bas relief depicts his mother as the “proud and resolute” figurehead on the fishing schooner Rose Dorothea, an icon for this Cape Cod town. The sculpture was installed in the Provincetown Library; the restoration of the circa 1860 building it occupies was a project dear to his mother’s heart and its archives section is named for her. See the article from the Provincetown Banner here.

Mutable Currency: Past and Present traces the evolution of this eminent American abstract expressionist sculptor, with works from the 1950s – 1970s. The show is at Chicago’s McCormick Gallery June 1 - August 11, 2012. Hunt’s Build A Dream can be seen in Newport News.

Rob Lorenson’s Red Swan is on view in Boston at the State Transportation Building through June 15, 2012, in Sculpture NOW! presented by the New England Sculptors Association. Lorenson’s Reinvented can be seen in Newport News.

Watch the process by which sculpture is made, from start to finish, in a quarry in Italy’s beautiful Carrara Mountains. Inger Sannes, sculptor of Elements in Newport News, participated in this symposium in June 2011. The works completed in the open-air studio were exhibited just down the mountain in the village of Colonnata and later that fall in Rome. See the film here.

Helaine Blumenfeld’s Tempesta adds a contemporary grace note to the beautifully restored 19th century façade of The Lancasters, a luxury development overlooking London’s Hyde Park; Blumenfeld’s piece was unveiled on May 2, 2012. Her Spirit of Life is at Riverside Regional Medical Center in Newport News.

Inger Sannes’s work will be shown in European Sculpture, Methods – Materials – Poetry, a collaboration between the European Sculpture Network and the Swedish Sculpture Association. The exhibit opens on May 5, 2012 at the Edsvik Konsthall gallery in Sweden and will include two of her marble sculptures, Tide and Elements. Sannes’s Elements can be seen in Newport News.

NBC’s Today show visited Helaine Blumenfeld and the town of Pietrasanta, Italy, where many of the sculptures in Newport News, including Blumenfeld’s Spirit of Life, are created. See the video here.

Gregory Henry, whose Monument to Service is in Newport News, will be included in "Who We Are, Past and Present," a retrospective at Pfac. Running from April 7 to July 8, 2012, the exhibition celebrates Pfac's 50th anniversary by highlighting regional artists who have taught or shown work at the center in Newport News.

Inger Sannes, whose Elements is in Newport News, will show her work at the Het Depot sculpture gallery in the Netherlands. Opening on March 25, 2012, the exhibit includes the work of sculptors based at Studio Sem, a marble studio in Pietrasanta, Italy.

Virginia Town & City's January/February 2012 cover story showcases how art and economic development go hand-in-hand in Newport News.  Click here to see the story.

Richard Hunt’s Build a Dream was unveiled on August 6, 2011. The work of one of America’s most eminent sculptors is a focal point of a community redevelopment project in Newport News.

In a ceremony at the House of Commons on July 13, 2011, Blumenfeld, whose Spirit of Life is in Newport News, was awarded an honorary Order of the British Empire for her “remarkable contribution to the arts as one of the boldest and most diverse artists working today.” This is a rare honor for an American and an artist. Read more about Helaine Blumenfeld here.

In 2011, seven sculptors worked in an open-air “studio” in a marble quarry high in Italy’s Carrara Mountains, in a project organized by Inger Sannes (whose Elements is in Newport News). The works will be exhibited in 2012 in Rome and Stockholm, and the project will be featured in an exhibit in Oslo in 2013. A catalogue from the exhibition is here.

Emanuele De Reggi showed several of his works, which will be familiar to fans of his Carambola and Il Segreto, both in Newport News, at an estate in Pietrasanta, Italy. Images of his sculpture in this beautiful setting, and of him casting bronze in Bangkok, are here.

The artists behind the Public Art Foundation’s sculpture have been recording audio messages about their work. Just call (757) 234-7019 and take a tour of the art — with the artists as your guide. Since our collection is by artists from around the world, you’ll enjoy the flavor of their backgrounds in their voices.

Harry Gordon exhibited Snapdance at Navy Pier Walk 2011, a group show in Chicago’s historic and popular lakefront entertainment center. Gordon’s Lenape Gate is in Newport News.

A new brochure on sculpture in Newport News, aimed at visitors — and the residents who entertain them — has been developed by the Newport News Tourism Development Office and Newport News Public Art Foundation. It features a map of sculpture in the city, with information about each piece. It will be available at the city Visitors Center at 13560 Jefferson Avenue, the airport information desk, brochure racks and state visitor centers. Download a copy of the brochure here.

Masaru Bando’s studio was among those participating in Brooklyn’s DUMBO Arts Festival, a three-day extravaganza of visual, musical, performance and other arts. Bando’s Memory of Green and Natural can be seen in Newport News. The studio of Bando’s wife, Rica, was also open; read more about the festival here.

Rob Lorenson — whose Reinvented is in Newport News— had a busy summer in 2011. Silver Diamonds was one of 12 pieces in the juried exhibition “Into the Light of Things” in Greenport in New York’s Hamptons. Syosset #12 was selected for the juried Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition in Cary, North Carolina. Sentinel was in New Hampshire at the annual outdoor exhibit at the Mill Brook Gallery and Sculpture Garden, and four of Lorenson’s works delighted visitors to downtown Salem, Massachusetts.

Greg Henry was featured in a solo exhibition at the Eastport Arts Center in Maine in the summer of 2011. Henry is the sculptor of Monument to Service in Newport News and teaches at Christopher Newport University. Read more here.