Seymour Lipton

1903 - 1986

Biography(b New York, 6 Nov 1903; d 15 Dec 1986).
American sculptor. One of the few native New Yorkers in the New York School. He graduated as a doctor of dental surgery in 1927, his serious work as an artist beginning only in 1932. He first exhibited in 1933–4, and his first one-man exhibition, mainly of wood-carvings dealing with themes of social concern, was in 1938. From the early 1940s until 1958 he taught sculpture at various colleges in the New York area and was a visiting critic at Yale University. By the mid-1940s he was working in lead and then bronze. During this technical evolution his formal vocabulary also changed from more or less figurative images, such as Imprisoned Figure (lead and wood, 1948; New York, MOMA), to gaunt, Surrealistic constructions in several materials, such as Sea King (nickel-silver on Monel metal, 1955; Buffalo, NY, Albright–Knox). Eventually he developed unique and influential techniques.

Lipton sketched constantly, copying forms from a wide variety of objects. He also worked from photographs. When satisfied with a design, he would convert it to a small maquette assembled from metal sheets that he cut and spot-brazed. These he then altered, sometimes combining two or more themes or ideas, to make a new formal arrangement, from which a full-size version was produced. In the tradition of Constructivist sculpture, Lipton assembled sheets of metal, but he did not weld the sheets as did, for example, Julio Gonzalez and then David Smith; instead he brazed different alloys, using a hard solder, on to sheets of cut Monel metal. The stable, non-ferrous Monel metal provided a non-corrosive platform for the alloys (usually bronze or nickel-silver) melted on to it. These sheets, covered with an irregularly applied coating of a second metal, were cut and bent into the desired shapes before being joined at their edges. This technique allowed Lipton to experiment with a wide variety of forms, especially those that did not respond to a geometric or mechanical interpretation, for example Ancestor (nickel-silver on Monel metal, 1959; Washington, priv. col.).

Lipton’s organic and abstract sculpture, such as Defender (nickel-silver on Monel metal, 1962; Washington, DC, N. Mus. Amer. Art), has a textured, hand-made surface. His technique was conducive to the development of both small- and large-scale works that could combine vegetative lushness, demonic ferocity and solidity of form. From the 1950s to the 1970s Lipton produced a series of works distinguished by a great degree of formal variation and invention. His forms could suggest human anatomy, or machines, animals or plants, but often all these elements combined in synthesis with disturbing, mythic connotations. He made a major contribution to post-War Abstract-Expressionist sculpture, which could evoke massive forms with a great economy of means. His work was recognized and displayed in many different contexts. It demonstrates the possibility of working as intuitively in sculpture as in painting. [Harry Rand. "Lipton, Seymour." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 9, 2014, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T051311.]

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