Venus & Saturn Series by Gerald Gladstone
Gerald Gladstone
Venus & Saturn Series
lucite sculpture with original lightbox
signed within the construction
5 x 7.25 x 7.25 ins ( 12.7 x 18.4 x 18.4 cms ) ( excluding lightbox )
Auction Estimate: $1,200.00 - $1,500.00
Price Realized $1,298.00
Sale date: November 19th 2019
Fran Hill Gallery, Toronto
Private Collection, Toronto
Sandra Martin, Gerald Gladstone, artist 1929-2005, Globe and Mail, Toronto, Wednesday, March 9, 2005
Gerald Gladstone, Gerald Gladstone: artist, Toronto, 1983, pages 1 and 4
Paul Russell, Sculptures can be glamorous tv lamps, October 31, 1970, not paginated
A large part of Gladstone’s oeuvre focused on welded steel sculptures, and as Gary Michael Dault observed, “people were still bashing at stone…Gladstone’s sculptures, with their welded rods and whirling discs, looked adventurously modernist in the all-too-provincial Toronto of the 1950s.” Gladstone built a foundry to execute these modernist works inspired by the Russian constructivism movement of the 1920s. Each creation at the foundry would be cast, baked, cured, annealed, and then lathed and polished. Gladstone was commissioned to create artwork for the public sphere, many of which can still be viewed in public spaces across Canada.
Gladstone was a member of the important group of artists who exhibited with Av Isaacs at his art gallery in the 1950s, where he exhibited paintings, sculptures and lucite forms. Gladstone wished to project a new reality through his work, remarking that “the welded steel sculptures and those imbedded in the lucite shapes represent symbolic galaxies and the energies represented in them.”
For Gladstone, these concentric compositions in lucite are microscopic images of the cosmos, representing the galaxy and the inner and outer spaces of the earth. Gladstone was commissioned by the Art Committee of the Ontario Government in 1967-68 to create a dynamic work of art for the entrance lobby of the Macdonald Block. Gladstone erected Galaxy Series #2, a sculpture composed of forty welded steel structures of varying sizes, each imbedded in lucite cubes, rectangles and triangles, in blue, clear and magenta colours. Following this creation was “Venus & Saturn Series”, reflecting the idea that each lucite cube can stand alone as a sculpture, can be stacked or grouped with other lucite cubes as desired, or act as a functional light fixture within a home or office.
Gladstone’s artistic pursuit was to have art act as a reflection of the world, in that the artwork is not a fixed static product to be contemplated from a distance, but is meant to be walked around, walked into, assembled, reassembled and challenged creatively. As Paul Russell stated, “ask yourself the ultimate Gerald Gladstone question: Is this a work of art posing as a lamp, or a lamp posing as a work of art.”
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Gerald Gladstone
(1929 - 2005)
Born in Toronto, Ontario, Gladstone started drawing at the age of eleven. He left school in the seventh grade but continued his own self education. Over the years he did many things but worked mainly in the field of advertising and was employed by the MacLaren Advertising Company. He did his first piece of sculpture in 1956 following his visit to Gordon Rayner’s solo show at the Art Gallery of Toronto. He studied welding for a number of months and by 1957 held his first solo exhibit at the Art Gallery of Toronto. As a result the Gallery purchased his work entitled “Female Galaxy”. In 1958 he exhibited at the Isaacs Gallery, Toronto, and at the Greenwich Art Gallery when the late Pearl McCarthy notes “Gerald Gladstone’s exhibition . . . includes steel sculptures. It is a harsh medium, but in pieces like ‘Marine’ Mr. Gladstone manages to boss the medium into a real abstraction of wind, seals, waves and elements.” By this time wider attention was being given his work; he held another solo show at the Isaacs Gallery in 1959 and completed two important commissions in Toronto.
In 1961 he received a Canada Council grant and went to England where he worked at his sculpture and painting and spent several months at the Royal College of Art. He exhibited at the Molton Gallery, London, in 1962 when Charles Spencer in The Studio noted, “The Sculpture is entirely made of metal, mostly spheres and rods. This combination immediately creates its own relationships; they remind one, for instance, of the anatomical drawings of Leonardo or Stubbs with their tensions and sinuous forms; also space travel, even science fiction . . . There is nothing frightening or spooky about these creations. They have their own logic and reality. They are always powerfully visual; complex and elegant, moving backwards and forwards, creating new variations, rather like a a Bach fugue. (Musical analogies are inevitable).” Spencer went on to say that he felt Gladstone’s work was not sculptural gimmickry and that he was convinced of the seriousness of the artist and that he was impressed with the artist’s results.
Gladstone returned to Canada and in 1962 exhibited at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and in 1963 held a solo exhibit of sculptures, drawings and paintings at the Dorothy Cameron Gallery. He enjoyed further success when three of his works were selected for exhibit at the Second Canadian sculpture exhibition in 1964 (sponsored by the National Gallery of Canada). Gladstone had a wide variety of interests including music – he taught himself to play the flute and enjoyed Mozart. Some critics see this musical interest in his sculptures.
Gladstone completed several commissions, including “Uki” his 37’ monster that breathed fire when it rose out of the water near the Canadian Pavillon at Expo 67. The monster gave engineers (working with Gladstone) problems they had not previously encountered. He is represented in many public and private collection including the Vancouver Art Gallery, the National Gallery Canada and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts.
Source: "A Dictionary of Canadian Artists, Volume II”, compiled by Colin S. MacDonald, Canadian Paperbacks Publishing Ltd, Ottawa, 1979
