Delos Van Earl
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Artist Spotlight
Steel Dreams: Delos Van Earl's Joyful Creatures
Something is stirring in the world of contemporary American sculpture, and collectors who have been paying attention already know the name Delos Van Earl. His large scale outdoor installation in a sun drenched desert setting, a towering orange form with a vivid blue disc at its center, has become one of those works that stops people in their tracks. Planted among palms and open sky, it commands the landscape not through solemnity but through sheer exuberance, the kind of piece that makes you want to understand everything else the artist has ever made. Van Earl is a working American sculptor… Continue reading
Artists in conversation
Alexander Calder
Calder's painted steel sculptures featuring biomorphic and playful abstract forms share a strong visual kinship with Van Earl's vibrant palette and sculptural animal compositions. Both artists embraced bright color and dynamic three dimensional form to animate stylized creatures.
David Smith
Smith's totemic welded steel sculptures with geometric and abstract figural qualities parallel Van Earl's interest in sculptural composition and modernist steel art. Collectors drawn to Van Earl's bold structural animal forms would find strong resonance in Smith's work.
Mark di Suvero
Di Suvero's large scale painted steel sculptures share Van Earl's commitment to vibrant color and three dimensional abstract form in an American contemporary context. His playful yet monumental compositions echo the totemic and geometric qualities found in Van Earl's work.
Artists who inspired them
Jean Arp
Arp's pioneering biomorphic sculptural forms and his exploration of organic abstraction in three dimensions laid groundwork that Van Earl drew upon in developing his sculptural animal vocabulary. The smooth flowing abstract shapes Arp favored resonate throughout Van Earl's aesthetic approach.
Alexander Archipenko
Archipenko's innovative integration of color and sculptural form along with his modernist reimagining of figural subjects offered Van Earl a model for combining painterly vibrance with three dimensional composition. His experimental approach to merging painting and sculpture is reflected in Van Earl's oil enamel on steel works.