Sculpting our heroes
Date
6:30 PM – 7:30 PM | panel discussion in the skylight gallery
Location
Sponsor
Admission
Open to the public; up to 100 seats
Eventbrite tickets required
About the Event
The first Salmagundi bust competition sustains a long tradition of talented sculptors honoring their esteemed forerunners in clay and bronze. Fine Art Connoisseur editor-in-chief Peter Trippi considers the club’s exciting new initiative within the contexts of both art history and the contemporary art scene.
This panel will feature a conversation between Peter Trippi, this year’s winning sculptor Heather Personett, and other fellow sculptors. Before the discussion, there will be a meet & greet reception in the parlor. Drinks will be available for purchase at our bar (no cash).
![Heather Personett [NM] : Portrait bust of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) [RA ca.1877-1907], 2022.](https://salmagundiorg.lightningbasecdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/2_PersonettASG_leftcornerblack-scaled.jpg "Heather Personett [NM] : Portrait bust of Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) [RA ca.1877-1907], 2022.")
About the Speakers
Peter Trippi
Peter Trippi is editor-in-chief of Fine Art Connoisseur magazine and president of Projects in 19th-Century Art, Inc. Based in New York City, he previously directed the Dahesh Museum of Art and created international touring exhibitions and publications devoted to the 19th-century painters J.W. Waterhouse and Lawrence Alma-Tadema. His next projects are the 2024 loan exhibition Pre-Raphaelites: A Modern Renaissance in Forlì, Italy, and a series of articles about fine art displayed in the home of the 19th-century poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Cambridge, Massachusetts).
Kate Brockman
Kate Brockman was born in England and moved, with her family, to the United States in 1979. She took her first course in figure sculpture while an undergrad at West Chester University, PA. Formal art study began at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in1986. This time solidified her love of figurative work and specifically the nude. Kate continued study with Evangelos Frudakis and Myron Barnstone. She has had solo exhibits in the Philadelphia area and the James A. Michener Museum in Doylestown, PA, as well as numerous group shows in the tri-state area. Brockman has received many national and international awards for her work including a Cresson Memorial Traveling Scholarship, two grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, the Alex J. Ettl Grant from the National Sculpture Society (NSS) in 2011, the Michael Gressel Memorial Award from the Hudson Valley Art Association in 2017. Most recently her portrait Fearless in Fear: A Young Harriet Tubman was awarded the Gold Medal in the NSS 88th Annual Awards Exhibition. Kate is currently a board member of the National Sculpture Society and is on the sculpture faculty at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, teaching figure modeling and Foundry. Her studio and foundry are in Philadelphia.
Heather Personett
Heather Personett (b. 1988) is a figurative sculptor living in Brooklyn, NY. She attended State University of New York at Fredonia where she received her BFA in Illustration and Animation. Following graduation, she continued studying ceramics and sculpture which began her transition from two dimensional study to three dimensional arts. She then went on to receive her masters at the New York Academy of Art where she earned an MFA in Sculpture. She was a recipient of several Merit Awards as well as the Carrara Stone Carving Residency, and continued to work in stone as an apprentice for several years. More recently, Heather worked as a portrait sculptor and freelance artist at Studio EIS in Brooklyn, under the tutelage of head sculptor Jiwoong Cheh. She is an adjunct professor at several universities, including the New York Academy of Art and Fashion Institute of Technology. She is also currently the Director of Sculpture at Grand Central Atelier, where she heads the sculpture curriculum and began their first full time sculpture program in 2022.
Erik Ebeling
Erik Ebeling is from Overland Park, Kansas. He studied at the Lorenzo de’ Medici Institute of Art in Florence, Italy, and graduated in 2005 from Drake University with a BFA in graphic design and a concentration in painting. After working as a senior graphic designer for Disney Interactive for several years, he shifted his attention back to sculpture, his lifelong interest. He now lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
Charlie Mostow
Charlie Mostow is a sculptor trained at the Grand Central Atelier and in the studio of Sabin Howard. He is currently working with Sabin Howard to create the United States National World War I Memorial. The 58 foot long bronze relief will be unveiled in Washington D.C. in the Fall of 2024.
Susan Wakeen
Susan Wakeen has received the highest National and International awards, honors, and recognitions by the industry’s most prestigious art organizations. She has been accepted into The National Sculpture Society’s Annual Exhibitions, Art Renewal Center Salon Shows, Portrait Society of America’s Annual Conferences, Salmagundi Club, Allied Artist, Academic Artist and more. Recently Susan received the honor of Signature Status by Portrait Society of America. Susan has been accepted into the Brookgreen Gardens Master’s Teaching Program at Brookgreen Gardens, Murrells Inlet, SC, home of the largest and most comprehensive collection of American figurative sculpture in the country.
Matt Gemmell
Matt Gemmell began his career at the age of 17 as an apprentice to sculptor Toby Mendez of Pleasant Valley Studios. He later went on to work as a mold maker and metal finisher for New Arts Foundry and spent 8 years in Brooklyn, NY sculpting for StudioEIS. Currently, Matt creates figurative sculpture from his studio in Baltimore, MD and has started a new career as a portrait/landscape banknote engraver in Washington, DC.