Photographs and thoughts on photography and camera collecting
This is the sight that greeted us as we arrived at the Visitor’s Center: Seward Johnson’s take on Édouard Manet‘s famous painting Olympia. It’s called Confrontational Vulnerability and I’s huge!! (12ft x 20ft x 8ft)
Taken with a Fuji X-E3 and Fuji XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OSS II
I came across this rather intricate sculpture and stained glass window on the brown brick façade of what was once the Capuchin Monastery of St. John the Baptist. It was built in 1974 in the Brutalist style and was one of the buildings associated with the St. John The Baptist church on West 31st. NYC. It was sold to a retail property developer in 2016.
Pictures of the monastery before it was sold show a standing Christ figure in front of the medallion. I believe the sculpture was called “Christ over the City” and the artist was Benoit Gilsoul.
Benoît D. Gilsoul, 1914- 2000 was Born in Namur, Belgium anld completed his primary studies and Greek-Latin humanities. He then entered the Académie Royale des Beaux Arts, the most prestigious Belgian art college from which he graduated in 1938. During the six years at the Académie, Gilsoul acquired a solid artistic training. By 1933, he had already founded the secessionist art group: “L’Esquisse,” an influential group of young artists in Belgium that developed into the group “Salon National des Jeunes Artistes”. In 1935, while still at the Académie, he collaborated in the design for the entrée Reine Astrid and the pavillon de la vie Catholique at the World’s Fair in Brussels, Belgium. During that same year, he also undertook an extensive study tour with Nicolas de Stael, a close friend and fellow student. Upon graduation from the Académie, Gilsoul traveled extensively in Italy, France and Spain painting and drawing continuously.
In 1958, he became président of the Association des Artistes Belges where he remained honorary president until his death in 2000. In 1960, he was commissioned to execute the murals in the Salle de Réception for the Belgian Line in Antwerp. Also in 1960, the Belgian government sent him to the United States on a grant to study the artists’ situation in that country. Gilsoul quickly fell in love with America and upon his return to Belgium decided to resettle in America with his family and became an American citizen in 1967. In 1960, he began to design and work extensively in the field of stained glass while continuing his work in painting, print making, tapestry, and sculpture. He operated his own studio in New York where he created, designed and executed his work. Gilsoul is regarded today as one of the foremost artists in the field of Stained Glass.
Thomas Venturella had the honor and pleasure of working with this renowned artist from 1969 through the 1980’s. He fabricated many of Gilsoul’s windows including those for St. John’s Capuchin Monastery in New York City, “Christ Over the City”. Venturella states that “Benoît Gilsoul was a major force in the field of stained glass and one of the best colorists this medium has known.” (Adapted from Venturella Studio)
According to a post on Flickr:
Above the entrance to the Capuchin Monastery Church of St. John is the largest outdoor religious statue in New York City. The eleven foot Romanesque figure, entitled “Christ in the City” is polished bronze.
The background is a stained glass-stone-and-metal window representing Manhattan island with the East River and Brooklyn above, and the Hudson River and New Jersey below. Buildings, bridges, parks, docks and ships can be seen in the stone work of the window. The dominant colors of the stained glass are red, symbolizing charity, and blue, symbolizing spirituality.
The sculptor, Benoit Gilsoul states, “The call to spirituality is the meaning of the window. This is why St. John’s Church is here, why the Capuchin Franciscans are here. The city is spiritually dark, but a deep shadow is cast only by a bright light. Christ is the light of the city. The window is a call to the spirituality.”
The statue was dedicated by Terence Cardinal Cooke Archbishop of New York, on April 19, 1975.
It’s certainly interesting, but as mentioned above, the figure is no longer there. I wonder what happened to it?
Taken with a Fuji X-E3 and Fuji XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OSS II
Taken with a Fuji X-E3 and a variety of Fuji lenses.
These pictures were taken around the Mansion. Above: The Mansion and For Paul by Ursula von Rydingsvard.
The nonprofit Storm King Art Center was founded and opened to the public in 1960, thanks to the efforts of the late Ralph E. Ogden and H. Peter Stern, co-owners of the Star Expansion Company, based in Mountainville, New York.
The initial gift of what is today the Museum Building and its surrounding property was made by the Ralph E. Ogden Foundation, Inc. Over time, Star Expansion Company donated 300 contiguous acres, as well as 2,100 acres of Schunnemunk Mountain (now owned by the State of New York and designated Schunnemunk Mountain State Park) that preserve Storm King Art Center’s viewshed.
Although Storm King was originally envisioned as a museum devoted to Hudson River School painting, by 1961 its founders had become committed to modern sculpture. Early purchases were sited directly outside the Museum Building as part of a formal garden scheme. However, with the 1967 purchase of thirteen works from the estate of sculptor David Smith (1906–1965), Storm King began to place sculpture directly in the landscape. Since then, every work has been sited with consideration of both its immediate surroundings and distant views.
After more than 60 years, Storm King continues to grow and evolve, and is among the world’s leading sculpture parks.(Storm King Art Center Website)
In early 1958, after retiring from a successful career in his family’s business, Star Expansion Company, Ralph E. Ogden purchased what would soon become Storm King Art Center—a 180-acre estate in Mountainville, New York.[1] In 1960, he opened his land to the public and began the collection with a number of small sculptures he had acquired in Europe. In 1967, with the purchase of thirteen pieces from sculptor David Smith, the collection was firmly established.
The center’s first sculptures were exhibited around its main building, but as time passed, the collection expanded out into the landscape, of which the sculptures became an integral part. The landscape and the main house were redesigned and molded early on by landscape architect William Rutherford and his wife Joyce Rutherford, and later by Ogden’s previous business partner, Peter Stern, who had become the center’s chairman and president, and by David Collins, the center’s director. Stern continued to run the center after Ogden’s death in 1974, and added many of its most well-known pieces.
In 1975, five monumental works by Mark di Suvero were saved from being dismantled and packed away when Peter Stern asked the artist if the sculptures could be displayed at Storm King after they were exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art. The pieces are now part of the center’s core collection, and are prominently displayed in its South Fields.
The center continued to grow throughout the latter part of the 20th century, as sculptures were added to its permanent collection and the center exhibited works in circulation from other museums. For example, the Museum of Modern Art loaned four sculptures to the center for a year-long exhibition when its sculpture garden underwent construction in 1982.
The original 250 acres of land were expanded in 1985, when the Star Expansion Company donated two tracts of land for the center’s 25th anniversary. The largest donated parcel of land was composed of 2,300 acres on the nearby Schunnemunk Mountain, which is the backdrop for many of the center’s monumental sculptures, and is an important component of the character of the center and its landscape. Another gift was a one hundred-acre piece of farmland directly adjacent to the center, which has been used to house new additions to the collection. (Wikipedia).
Taken with a Fuji X-E3 and a variety of Fuji lenses.
Taken with a Fuji X-E3 and a variety of Fuji lenses.