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12 Dick Polich

THE CONDUCTOR: DICK POLICH IN ART HISTORY

BY DANIEL BELASCO

> ’ 25 x 35 x 17 foot bronze at Polich Art Works, in collaboration with Bob Spring and Foundry, 1999, Courtesy Dick Polich © Louise Bourgeois Estate / Licensed by VAGA, (cat. 40) ww

TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 13

THE CONDUCTOR: DICK POLICH IN ART HISTORY 14 Dick Polich

Art foundry owner and metallurgist Dick Polich is one of those rare skeleton keys that unlocks the doors of modern and contemporary art.

Since opening his first art foundry in the late 1960s, Polich has worked closely with the most significant artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. His foundries—Tallix (1970–2006), Polich of Polich’s energy and invention, Art Works (1995–2006), and Polich dedication to craft, and Tallix (2006–)—have produced entrepreneurial acumen on the renowned artworks like ’ work of artists. As an art fabricator, gleaming stainless steel Rabbit (1986) and Polich remains behind the scenes, Louise Bourgeois’ imposing 30-foot tall his work subsumed into the careers spider Maman (2003), to name just two. of the artists. In recent years, They have also produced major public however, postmodernist artistic monuments, like the Korean War practices have discredited the myth Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC of the artist as solitary creator, and (1995), and the horse the public is increasingly curious in (1999). His current business, to know how elaborately crafted Polich Tallix, is one of the largest and works of art are made.2 The best-regarded art foundries in the following essay, which corresponds world, a leader in the integration to the exhibition, interweaves a of technological and metallurgical history of Polich’s foundry know-how with the highest quality leadership with analysis of craftsmanship. Over the years Polich landmark artworks he has made. has cast and fabricated thousands of One of the keys to Polich’s success for hundreds of artists. is his enthusiasm for delving into (An artist list can be found on page the ambiguous territory between 96.) He has also employed hundreds art and craft while clearly of artisans who take great pride in their distinguishing the different work, some of whom have been artists professional roles of artist and in their own right or later established fabricator. “As an engineer working their own foundries in the Hudson with materials and structures, faced Valley and beyond.1 As one of the with a problem, I transform it into principal art fabricators of the something I can tackle objectively, half-century, Polich warrants a using the rules and laws of substantive history that tells his story engineering. Artists, however, from the vantage point of art history. work from within themselves; Dick Polich: Transforming their response to a problem is Metal into Art is the first museum subjective, based on feelings and exhibition to explore the impact personal views, uninhibited by precedent,” Polich wrote.3 At his very best, Polich will lead an artist to new discoveries and manifest TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 15

those discoveries in a form that meets or exceeds the artist’s vision. The fertile exchanges between Polich and a diverse group of artists reveal how the development of Polich and his foundries are an inextricable part of the evolution in economics, Polich moved to Rahway, of contemporary art. NJ. There he lived in company housing and met Merton Flemings, the mentor who would change his life. A recent Beginnings Ph.D. in metallurgy with a specialty in advanced foundry technology, Flemings Dick Polich is a self-made man. He arrived at American Brake Shoe around was born in 1932 to a working class the same time as Polich. The two became Croatian family that immigrated to fast friends, dining nearly every night the area two decades until Flemings joined the faculty of earlier. He grew up in a tight-knit the Institute of community in Lyons, on the West Technology in 1956.6 Side, and played football in the Polich soon tired of the routine at rough and tumble Suburban work, and craved excitement and travel. League.4 Thanks to his athletic Influenced by his Yale classmate Russell prowess and scholastic W. Meyer, Jr., who joined the Marine achievement, Polich received a Corps Reserve, Polich joined the Navy scholarship to attend Yale to fly jets in 1956 (fig. 1). He served for University. He first rode a train on three years, the experience of landing his journey from Chicago to New fighters on aircraft carriers having Haven. At Yale, Polich excelled in satisfied his thirst for manly adventure. athletics and academics. His interest Next, Polich decided to pursue his in the intersection of art and longtime ambition to be an architect. He industry originated during these reconnected with Scully, who recalled undergraduate days. Polich studied Polich’s term paper on Art Nouveau, an the history of architecture and architectural and decorative style that modern art with the renowned allied craft and industry in the late 19th art historians and and early 20th centuries. Scully wrote a ,5 and in the strong recommendation letter, and the summers he worked for the Harvard Graduate School of Design American Brake Shoe Company. admitted Polich. He moved to This industrial foundry awarded Cambridge with his wife and two sons him a scholarship for his senior in 1960, but he did not thrive in the year, which covered tuition and competitive atmosphere of architecture guaranteed him a job after school. Polich describes being unable to graduation in 1954. With a degree defend his work, a skill essential to survive the faculty critiques that were, and remain, a staple of art and design education. Disheartened, Polich left Harvard after a year, and in 1961 went 16 Dick Polich

< fig. 1 The Times (Lyons, IL), December 19, 1956, Courtesy Dick Polich

practices in American foundries.7 Most artists cast work in Europe, Taylor said at the time, because the labor-intensive traditional techniques discouraged the opening of new art foundries in America. MIT secured grants from the Rockefeller and Ford foundations to develop new methods of inexpensive, high quality art casting. Updating the ancient lost wax process, Duca invented the “foam vaporization” method. A carved in polystyrene would be encased in a sand mold. Technicians poured molten metal into the mold, which evaporated the foam and left in its place a unique solid casting. After perfecting this method, which involved testing to work for Flemings on the research different types of venting, MIT cast team in the MIT Foundry. There, Polich over 30 works, including Duca’s felt more comfortable using his skills to bronze Pegasus in 1959 (fig. 2) and manufacture technically and materially ductile iron Crucified Man in 1960 advanced objects without having to (fig. 3).8 The textured surface of provide a conceptual framework or Pegasus reveals its material origin aesthetic justification. That, he in plastic, not plaster, wax, or clay, understood, was the responsibility demonstrating that the result of of the artist. its unorthodox production is Like many industries in equivalent to that of traditional post-World War Two America, foundries techniques. experienced a period of rapid growth The MIT Foundry was an and technological transformation. New ideal setting for Polich, who was materials and techniques that had been spiritually awed by the primitive developed in the 1930s and 40s gained power of molten metal heated to practical application on a large scale to over 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and feed the growing consumer and military intellectually stimulated by the markets. The MIT Foundry, a university technical challenges of casting for leader in advanced foundry practices at art and industry. After working on the time, may have been the only one in the foundry staff for a year, Polich America to combine high-end industrial began to take graduate courses, research and serious commitment to researching precision casting of artistic experimentation. A unique aluminum and magnesium, a collaboration between two metallurgy problematic metal that easily professors, Merton Flemings and burns. Though he worked with Howard F. Taylor, and artist-in-residence Duca, Polich focused on aerospace Alfred M. Duca, led to new low-cost, industry, and wrote a thesis on artistic applications of industrial developing high strength ball bearings to withstand continual usage in the navigational gyroscopes of nuclear missiles TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 17

on 24-hour alert. In 1964, Polich earned a master’s degree in metallurgy and returned to industry, getting a job at the high-tech Hitchiner Manufacturing Company in Milton, NH. He soon outgrew this position and sought a larger challenge. Polich became a division manager at the aerospace < fig. 2 Alfred M. Duca, manufacturer Bendix Corporation Pegasus, 1959, bronze, 42 x 36 x in . Living in Ridgewood, 36 in., Collection of NJ, Polich could have settled into a deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, life of suburban affluence and Lincoln, MA, Gift of Veronique Bernard corporate ladder climbing. in memory of Alfred However, it was the 1960s, and Duca, 2001.55

Polich, like so many others, vibrated < fig. 3 to the heady optimism of the day. Unknown Photographer, His consciousness raised, Polich Alfred M. Duca with Crucifixion in foam, began to consider ways to redirect c. 1960, gelatin silver the power of technology from print, Courtesy MIT Museum, corporate and military ends to more Cambridge, MA humanistic goals. He had recently met artist Toni Putnam, and became interested in the creative life as a valuable endeavor. As Polich tells the story, after receiving an order to produce 50,000 parts for gas masks, he realized he was finished with Bendix and ready to leap into the unknown. attracted enough business that by 1970, he was ready to grow. Saunders wished Peekskill, The Rock Cut 1970–1976 to devote himself to the family business, so Polich struck out on his own, with the In the late 1960s Polich left New support of Putnam, renting a new space Jersey and moved with Putnam to in Peekskill, NY, closer to the city. In the New York’s Hudson Valley. There, 3,000 square foot facility on Dogwood Polich partnered with Sandy Road (then known as the “rock cut”), Saunders, a friend and former Polich installed equipment bought from co-worker at the MIT Foundry, to a defunct foundry in Schenectady, NY. open an art foundry, called Soltek Polich called the new firm Tallix, derived (short for solidification technology). from the word “metallics,” coining a Located in Nelsonville, a village in name that suggested the creative Cold Spring, NY, an hour north of intersection of art and industry, the final , the foundry began “x” a phonological marker of companies in two rooms—one for wax and that identify themselves with technology molds, the other for casting and (such as Xerox). finishing—located in opposite Polich understood the dynamic corners of a large workshop owned convergence of art and technology in the by the Saunders family foundry 1960s with the factory the new site of supply company.9 The year was art-making. The tendency emerged early 1968 or 1969.10 One of the first pieces in the decade, when and they cast was a small bronze Alexander Liberman eschewed making rabbit, an auspicious symbol of art that looked hand-made and found productivity (fig. 4). Polich New York City-based custom metal fabricators like Treitel-Gratz and Milgo 18 Dick Polich

Industrial to be amenable to sculptural production to the same extent as production. Sensing the trend, in 1966 artists who employed custom Donald Lippincott and Roxanne Everett fabricators had no foundry opened Lippincott Inc. to fabricate equivalent to the technology- large-scale sculpture, in North Haven, oriented and artist-centric CT, and Sidney Felsen, Stanley Grinstein, Lippincott and Gemini G.E.L. and Kenneth Tyler established Gemini Because of the great expense and G.E.L. to make experimental prints and danger of metal casting, artists multiples, in . Galleries and investigating molding and casting, museums mounted numerous exhibitions like Louise Bourgeois, Bruce of contemporary art using plastics, neon, Nauman, and , typically Plexiglas, video, and other industrial or used non-metallic materials like commercial materials. The advent of plaster, latex, and fiberglass in their and serial production own studios. When artists wanted hastened the divorce of art and craft a work in bronze they went to inaugurated by Marcel Duchamp’s established bronze foundries in Fountain in 1917. In the post-Duchampian Europe, like those in Pietrasanta, art world, the artist could create art with Italy, and in the , either a conceptual rationale or a formal like the Modern Art Foundry, in structure for materials. Either option may , New York, founded by or may not include handicraft by the John Spring in 1932. Artists would artist or others working on behalf the drop off their models or original artist. The decoupling of art and craft sculptures, with some trepidation, opened up space for the art fabricator and return a few months later to to become a major player in pick up the finished bronzes. A contemporary art. few enterprising artists worked Experimental artists who wanted with industrial foundries. Jacques to get involved with foundry Lipschitz cast some sculptures at Avnet–Shaw, on Long Island, NY, an early adopter of silicone and vinyl molds,11 but the process proved too expensive for the ongoing production of individual works or small editions.12 Tallix was one of the first new foundries to open in America fully prepared to embrace the demands of the contemporary art world.13 Polich’s art foundry pioneered the latest technologies and alloys and made them available to artists. “The whole foundry revolves around the idea that artists have a difficult time giving their work to other hands. So we have to make them feel confident that it’s okay. We have places where they can plug in and actually make changes. The first place is where they see the waxes. The last place is where they see the color go down,” Polich says.14 Over the years, Polich

< fig. 4 Dick Polich and Sandy Saunders, (Bunny), c. 1969, Courtesy Sandy Saunders, Photo: Dmitri Kasterine (cat. 25)

18 TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 19

fig. 5 (top): Tallix staff holding sections of Sterett-Gittings Kelsey’s

Barbara Lee Furbush of Sunshine (top left: Dick Polich, Toni Putnam, Roger

Ericksen, Frank Minardi, Chris Minardi; bottom left: Virginia Marques, Andra

Sramek, Dennis Klubnick, unidentified, unidentified), 1972, Courtesy Dick

Polich (cat. 41) | fig. 6 (left):

Thom Joyce and John Dreyfuss with

Dreyfuss’ Bird on One Leg at Tallix, c. 1980, Courtesy Dick Polich, Photo

© Mary Noble Ours (cat. 22) | fig. 7

(bottom): Tallix staff picnic, c. 1978,

Courtesy Dick Polich 20 Dick Polich

adapted sand casting, ceramic shells, as good as its people, and he made and new lead-free bronze alloys. Polich sure to credit his talented and modified the “anti-gravity” foundry dedicated employees. Ever the process used at Hitchiner for art casting, populist, Polich sought ways to using a vacuum to draw molten metal share the transformative power of up into a mold, rather than being poured metal casting with the public as down, resulting in better castings. He well. In the early 1970s, he partnered hired the most talented artisans. Tallix with Bob Spring, Sandy Saunders, quickly built a reputation as a foundry and Frederick L. Kramer to launch a that excelled in both traditional side business called Cast Your Own craftsmanship and technical and Bronze, Inc. which sold casting kits material innovation. with modeling wax, wax-sculpting In the freewheeling early days of tools, and instructions. The venture Tallix improvisation reigned, and Polich failed, as the costs greatly exceeded worked as well as managed: welding, the revenues. pouring, and finishing. An early It didn’t take long before a new employee, Wendy Gilvey, recalled one generation of New York City-based task was throwing water on Polich if he artists discovered Polich to be the caught fire when pulling ceramic shells foundryman willing to make from the oven.15 A motorcycle helmet anything. Joel Shapiro (b. 1941) and leather jacket served as safety gear at first used a small foundry in Queens that time, recalled Thom Joyce, another for rough castings in iron. When employee in the 1970s. Polich prioritized he wanted to work with a wider problem-solving and mechanical skill. variety of metals that were He asked Joyce three questions in his job commercially unavailable, he went interview: could he change a clutch, read to Polich.18 For Shapiro’s six-element a blueprint, and build a house?16 Polich series demonstrating relative taught employees how to finish and how density, Polich cast tin, zinc, and to file. Putnam, the primary patinist, copper in 2 ½ inch cubes, and the taught workers how to paint metal like artist milled steel, aluminum, and a watercolor, applying layer upon layer magnesium cubes from commercial of chemical washes while heating with a stock. In the formative work, torch to get the desired color and tone.17 Untitled (Six Types of Metal), Polich’s leadership at Tallix created Shapiro explored the intrinsic a cohesive team. He balanced the long properties of metal and Polich hours and dangerous and high stress abandoned traditional foundry atmosphere with social outlets and attitudes toward finishing (cat. educational activities, like company 30). The piece was displayed in an picnics (fig. 7) and after-work lessons in important solo exhibition at Paula anything from guitar making to personal Cooper Gallery in 1970.19 Working finance. Polich encouraged visiting artists with Polich allowed Shapiro to to present talks on contemporary art present metal as metal, not as a and gave holiday castings to the staff, medium of expression. thinking, “if you work at a foundry you Abstract Expressionist painter should have art at home.” Early on, Cleve Gray (1918–2004) helped to Polich knew that an art foundry was only define Tallix as a place to work with

Tallix was one of the first new foundries to open in America fully prepared to embrace the demands of the contemporary art world. TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 21

molten metal as subject matter. After a half-year residency at the University of Hawaii in 1970, Gray returned to his rural studio and assembled constructions Sunshine, in 1972 (fig. 5).23 Gaining in plaster, papier-mâché, and found confidence, Polich took on a daunting wood and metal objects inspired last-minute job, the casting of Play at by the flowing lava of Hawaiian Second Base (1976), a group of two volcanoes. In 1971, Gray went to over-life-sized baseball players by Tallix to render the sculptures in sculptor Joe Brown for the new Veterans metal to memorialize the elemental Stadium in (fig. 8). Modern force of molten rock.20 Polich used Art Foundry subcontracted Tallix to work the lost wax process to cast on this project and gave the foundry a approximately 40 bronzes, and very short turnaround. Tallix employees taught Gray to how to finish and worked around the clock to create their patinate them.21 Twenty-nine of largest sculpture to date. Polich realized these sculptures were exhibited that as his business grew, he had to at the Betty Parsons Gallery, New expand his facilities to meet the demand York, in 1973. Each a variation on of artists and clients commissioning asymmetry and balance, the large-scale monuments and public art. sculptures featured jutting forms that seemingly defied the heavy weight of metal.22 Number Fifteen Peekskill, The River 1976–1986 (1971) is a good example of the artist’s use of lava as a metaphor In 1976, Polich made another leap, (cat. 8). Gray remained friendly moving Tallix into a 10,000 square foot with Polich and gave him several former coal storage shed on the Center artworks, including the Dock of Peekskill. The building Roman Walls #38 (1980) (cat. 9), possessed a rabbit warren of rooms, which has three that and faced an inspirational Hudson River echo the structure of Number Fifteen. landscape (fig. 9). Not long after moving Polich granted painters the ability to the river, Polich connected with to use the foundry as an expressive Kenneth Tyler, who had produced medium, and Gray, who had few complex, multimedia prints and preconceived notions about casting, multiples with , embraced the process-oriented , and others at Gemini approach of Tallix. G.E.L. Tyler had recently relocated to In the first years of Tallix, Polich Bedford Village, NY, about twenty miles also established relationships with from Peekskill, opening Tyler Graphics a number of realist sculptors, like in 1974. Tyler often relied on foundries John Dreyfuss (fig. 6), André and specialized fabricators to produce Harvey, and Charles Parks. They metal, plastic, and other elements for his were prolific and successful, and elaborate prints and multiples. Because formed the main clientele that of its geographic proximity and helped establish Polich’s reputation reputation for quality, Tallix became for quality in traditional bronze a supplier for some of Tyler’s projects. casting, finishing, and patination. Tyler visited the foundry and Realist sculptors also presented photographed works in progress. technical challenges that were From Tyler, Polich made contacts with learning opportunities and helped visionary artists. He also learned how Polich grow his foundry. Polich to work collaboratively with a big team cast his first life-size figure for on complex, multidisciplinary projects, Sterett-Gittings Kelsey, the sitting while always keeping the artist at the dancer Barbara Lee Furbush of center. At Center Dock, Polich first developed the capacity to build significant sculptures for artists 22 Dick Polich TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 23

with international reputations. Lichtenstein had relied on fabricators to The first Tyler prints with Tallix create pictorial sculptures, such as the elements were developed by Roy brass and glass with < fig. 8 Lichtenstein (1923–1997). Entablature Glass Wave (1967). However, Lichtenstein (opposite page) Joe Brown’s Play at I (1976) depicts architectural details wanted to make more intricate three- Second Base at Tallix, and their shadows in Lichtenstein’s dimensional sculptures inspired by his 1976, Courtesy Dick Polich (cat. 37) typical cartoon-realism. To achieve painting. He had not found a fig. 9 (bottom) the semblance of sandstone texture shop that could satisfactorily fabricate Kenneth Tyler with on paper, Tyler contracted Tallix to metal sculpture from his narrow gauge Nancy Graves’ Ceridwen, Out of produce a special bronze plate to wooden maquettes with elements less Fossils at Tallix, c. 1977, Courtesy Dick imprint minute impressions (fig. than an inch thick. Lichtenstein’s model Polich © Nancy 10).24 Over the next decade, Tyler maker, Carlos Ramos, also knew about Graves Foundation, Inc. / Licensed by and Polich collaborated on dozens Tallix and proposed casting instead of VAGA, New York, NY of prints and multiples with Frank fabrication, an unexpected approach, as Stella, one with Terence La Noue, artists usually overlooked the fluid and an unusual folding screen with medium when making geometrical art.27 .25 Gateway But the direct cast worked. Lamp on (1988) includes three sandblasted Table (1977) is an early realization of bronze panels cast at Tallix. Lichtenstein’s meticulous working Polich and Putnam worked method (cat. 11).28 Lichtenstein first with Frankenthaler to adapt her sketched elements such as tables, chairs, stain-painting techniques for metal. stools, lamps, and fishbowls (cat. 14). Frankenthaler painted the panels on Then he mocked up the sketch into a site, erecting a makeshift studio so precise full-scale study with colored she could work in private (fig. 11). tape on board (cat. 13). Using this plan, Both Tallix’s workers and Polich Ramos constructed a full-scale, three- recall this secluded space as dimensional wood model, which Tallix antithetical to the open floor ethos molded, cast in bronze, and partly of Tallix, though it enabled painted. Lichtenstein’s assistant James Frankenthaler to feel comfortable DePasquale finished painting. Polich with the process. often personally delivered the finished Thanks to the success of the bronze to the Castelli Gallery, swapping Entablature series, Lichtenstein it for a new maquette to be cast. learned that Polich could produce Lichtenstein visited the foundry to bronze works to his exacting review work in progress, as seen in Ken specifications.26 Previously, Tyler’s intimate photograph of a friendly 24 Dick Polich

< fig. 10 Roy Lichtenstein, Entablature I, 1976, Screenprint and with embossing on Rives BFK paper, with cast-bronze textured part mounted on ½ inch aluminum plate, 29 11/16 x 44 7/8 in. © Estate of

consultation between Lichtenstein and Sculptor Nancy Graves (1939– Polich in 1977 (fig. 12), but generally kept 1995) and Dick Polich enjoyed his hands off the work. Lichtenstein’s possibly the most creative and enormous production at Tallix is a productive partnership in American testament to his trust in Polich and his contemporary art between an employees. Tallix cast 65 bronzes and individual artist and a foundry. fabricated 11 large-scale monuments Graves first went to Tallix at the for Lichtenstein from the 1970s up to suggestion of Tyler to cast her the artist’s death in 1997.29 The 12-foot plaster sculpture Fossils (1969–70) in high Lamp (1978), commissioned by the bronze. The unique lost wax casting, Gilman Paper Company in St. Marys, Ceridwen, Out of Fossils (1969–77), , became one of the first public originally commissioned by Peter contemporary-style artworks fabricated Ludwig and now at Museum by Tallix (fig. 13). A scaled-up, fabricated Ludwig, , resembles a version of the lamp in Lamp on Table, it prehistoric animal excavation. incongruously uses metal to represent Graves frequently traveled from beams of light, becoming a monumental to Tallix, using the work of visual . foundry as her auxiliary studio In the late 1970s Tallix became a (fig. 18). She produced nearly 200 full service foundry. Its manufacturing sculptures there from 1977 through business thrived. Tallix produced the late 1980s.30 Graves’ work at decorative castings for the Metropolitan Tallix exemplified the synergy Museum of Art, including replicas of a between an experimental artist Roman falcon and an Egyptian cat. The and a foundry eager to share all its Bill Historical Center authorized resources to create brilliant, Tallix to produce a new edition of 1000 innovative work.31 “When a bronze casts of Frederic Remington’s relationship like this is ‘on,’ it can sculpture (1895). Tallix be exciting and gratifying for both also started to gain notice for its artist and craftsman and sometimes conservation program, a side of the results in solutions the artist would business that developed with high not have reached alone,” Polich profile restorations such as that of the wrote in 1982.32 student bomb-damaged Alma Mater of Graves initially cast sculpted in 1978. objects, like Ceridwen, using waxes TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 25

fig. 11 (top): Helen Frankenthaler painting

Gateway at Tallix, c. 1986-87, Courtesy

Dick Polich, Photo: Marabeth Cohen-Tyler

© 2014 Helen Frankenthaler Foundation,

Inc. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

| fig. 12 (bottom, left): Roy Lichtenstein

and Dick Polich at Tallix, 1977, Courtesy

Dick Polich, Photo: Kenneth Tyler ©

National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

(cat. 36) | fig. 13 (bottom, right):

Roy Lichtenstein’s Lamp at Tallix, c. 1978,

Courtesy Dick Polich © Estate of

Roy Lichtenstein 26 Dick Polich

(top left this page) fig. 14 Tallix office, c. 1978, Courtesy Dick Polich

fig. 15 Tallix brochure (detail), c. 1982, Courtesy and molds in the traditional fashion, bright polyurethane paint and Dick Polich before exploring the foundry process enamel, and featuring a red platter (opposite page, top itself as a reproductive medium. Her first proffering bronze casts of goodies left) sculpture to use direct casting of found from a Korean market (pea pods, fig. 16 Nancy Graves, objects, Bathymet-Topograph (1978-9), banana blossoms), Looping is also Note to Toni features a bronze spiral at the top formed conceptually rigorous, bridging Putnam, c. 1981, with casts of paper and wax, which divergent paths in modern Collection of 35 the Nancy were encased in a ceramic shell and then sculpture. Graves combined the Graves disintegrated by heat in an oven. With deadpan direct casting of Jasper Foundation, New York © the burnout method, Graves could omit Johns, who used bronze ironically, Nancy Graves Foundation, several steps in the casting process, with the spirited welding of Inc. / Licensed skipping the mold and going directly . by VAGA, New York (cat. 6) from object to bronze, steel, and The painting of metal sculpture aluminum. Significantly, Graves gave was another area in which Graves (top right) fig. 17 a of Bathymet-Topograph to pioneered new materials and Toni Putnam and Nancy Polich to commemorate the start of a techniques. She worked closely with Graves ten-year phase of experimentation (cat. Toni Putnam to select the patina, patinating Taxidermy 7). Soon, Graves started casting the craft either acrylic or enamel, usually in a Form at Tallix, 36 c. 1979, paper used at Tallix. Then she started high key typical of the 1980s style. Courtesy bringing bags of fragile organic materials, Around this time artists first added Dick Polich © Nancy Graves such as plants, fruits, and fish, as well as dyes to patina, a technique, says Foundation, plastic nautical rope, lampshades, and Polich, which had long been taboo. Inc. / Licensed by VAGA, New other flammable materials, to be cast in A notebook and loose sheets of York bronze. sketches show how Graves (bottom) Few artists had used burnout communicated color treatments to fig. 18 Nancy Graves casting of organic materials since the 19th Putnam (fig. 16), though they also sculptures in progress century, and few foundries were willing worked side-by-side (fig. 17). outside Tallix, to take the risk.33 Polich and his staff Polich and Putnam formed a close c. 1982, Collection of devised and improvised new ways to friendship with Graves, who gave the Nancy cast these challenging materials, the couple a number of sculptures Graves Foundation, determining the amount and method and as birthday and New York © Nancy Graves of venting needing for each material to Christmas gifts, including a 1983 Foundation, avoid blow-outs. Graves made selections sculpture with enamel made from Inc. / Licensed by VAGA, New from the finished bronze castings and powdered glass, a technique York (cat. 38) welded them in exuberant constructions devised by Polich and other artists.37 with abstract, open forms. Sometimes she Because of his work with Graves, included casts of waste products of the Polich became comfortable giving foundry, such as the gates through which artists considerable space and the molten metal enters the mold.34 The freedom to experiment and nine-foot high bronze and steel Looping improvise. And the artists, when (1985) is an especially vibrant example granted access to the foundry’s (cat. 5). At once whimsical, colored with procedures, often returned the favor TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 27 28 Dick Polich Polich wisely accommodated a confident young artist whose work was expensive to produce yet intended to satirize art as a system of luxury goods.

of twelve works cast at Tallix by Graves, de Kooning, Toni Putnam, by creating sculpture that self-reflexively Michael Steiner, and . represented its making in a foundry, A New York Times article identified bringing casting squarely into the Tallix as a “nationally known art postmodern vernacular.38 foundry.”41 Other news reports To meet the growing demand for focused on the impressive task of outsized castings, Polich built a making, shipping, and installing three-story sand casting facility at Center large-scale works by Lichtenstein, Dock in 1982, which enabled larger and Clement Meadmore, and Nathan less expensive production than did the Rapoport. As business grew, Polich labor-intensive, investment molds and became increasingly community lost wax process.39 The rapid growth at minded, expanding his purview Tallix coincided with a surge in the beyond his ongoing concern for contemporary art market and a taste the well being of employees. Polich for neo-expressionism, which also established the Tallix Foundry Prize legitimated artists’ desire to play with the at the National Sculpture Society, irregular, fluid processes of casting. The which has been awarded at the growing numbers of urban elite enriched annual exhibition since the 1980s. by the Wall Street boom increasingly In 1985 Polich helped organize the consumed art. Commercial galleries first of a series of exhibitions of art began to contract Polich to create new by Tallix employees at the Garrison editions of classic modernist sculptures. Art Center. The annual show ran Willem de Kooning worked with Polich through 1994.42 Over the years, there to produce two editions of enlarged also have been internships for recent versions of three bronzes, originally graduates of sculpture programs executed in Rome. One, the six-inch high to receive training on site and an Untitled XII (1969), became the over allotment of bronze for their own nine-foot high Seated Woman (1980).40 artwork. No longer satisfied with Tallix’s Many artists increasingly reputation as an anonymous “foundry validated bronze as a conceptually in upstate New York,” Polich pushed the rich art medium, but some company to have a public identity and modernist sculptors remained presence. In 1984, a Tallix exhibition at skeptical. the New York Art Expo presented (1904–1988), famous for direct sculptures by Graves, de Kooning, Peggy carvings of wood and stone that Kauffman, and Clifford Ross, along with fused modernist and Japanese size documentary photos by Alan traditions, had begrudgingly worked Strauber. This exhibition also included with many foundries since the late Lichtenstein’s 25-foot high Brushstrokes in 1920s. Towards the end of his Flight (1984) before its installation in the career, in the mid 1980s, Noguchi Port Columbus International Airport, contracted Tallix to cast in bronze Columbus, OH. Also that year the at least 17 wood, plaster, stone, and Katonah Gallery, in Katonah, NY, plasticene sculptures, props, and exhibited Transformations, a selection TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 29

models that dated from the 1930s to the 1960s.43 He still harbored deep reservations about the value of reproducing art in bronze, concerned the original form would lose its aura of authenticity. In 1988, Tallix sand cast Strange Bird included the reflective stainless steel (to the Sunflower) (cat. 19), an Rabbit, now an icon of contemporary art, exemplary bronze version of the and also Cape Codder Troll (1986), a iconic 1945 slate original.44 mythological figure with nearly cubistic Noguchi’s studio assembled the facets that plays with the distinction , originally between tourist kitsch and high art (cat. designed with a folded paper 10). Koons, like Noguchi, appreciated maquette. Strange Bird, like Tallix’s the power of a foundry to transform casts of Noguchi’s wooden prop anything into art. The two artists differed for a Martha Graham dance project about the merits of this semantic shift. and plaster models for the unbuilt Polich’s openness to redefine art and Riverside Drive Playground, has a willingness to subordinate the foundry to rich black patina that recalls basalt, artists’ prerogatives fostered Koons and a making it resemble stone more younger generation of artists eager than a contemporary aluminum to use the foundry to reproduce found fabrication. Polich reassured and manufactured objects and materials. Noguchi that each casting was In the postmodern age, the intensive unique, and bore the hands and craft of foundry work ironically served craftsmanship of numerous conceptual art. artisans every step of the way. Tallix’s sixteen-year run in Peekskill reached an unexpected Beacon 1986–1995 crossroads with the controversial sculpture of Jeff Koons (b. 1955). Riding the continuing surge in the Polich wisely accommodated a financial and art markets, Polich bought confident young artist whose work a large complex of buildings in Beacon, was expensive to produce yet NY, 15 miles upriver from Peekskill (fig. intended to satirize art as a system 19). The encouragement of financial of luxury goods. Over a two-year backer Lee Balter and other members period, Koons, then still working of the Tallix board of directors aided as a commodities broker, brought Polich’s risky decision to significantly around 40 banal sporting goods upsize his business. In 1986, Polich and gift shop tchotchkes to Tallix. moved Tallix from the intimate quarters The foundry made molds and and sweeping vistas of Center Dock to cast the objects in metal. Koons the Beacon industrial site, formerly performed little manual work occupied by the Green Fan Company, on the sculptures, claiming their consisting of three buildings on eight translation from one medium to acres (fig. 20). “This is a gigantic change the other to be his art. “I’m and even the boldest of us feel twinges basically the idea person. I’m not of anxiety,” Polich wrote in a brochure physically involved in the announcing the move.46 The over 80,000 production,” Koons said at the square foot facility had plenty of space time.45 The Equilibrium series for receiving, producing, and storing included a bronze raft Lifeboat work of all scales. The 46-foot high (1985) and the Luxury and ceiling allowed enormous works to be Degradation series included the stainless steel Jim Beam–J.B. Turner Train (1986). The Statuary series 30 Dick Polich

constructed indoors, and even larger ones could be constructed outdoors. Polich worked with Dutchess County Community College to establish a work training program to prepare qualified employees for Tallix.47 In Beacon, Tallix shifted from being a private business to a public institution, a large and active art factory that contrasted with the then-derelict downtown. Lichtenstein, Graves, Noguchi, and Koons continued to produce some of their best work with Polich in the foundry’s first years at Beacon. New artists with public and private commissions also came through the door. Robert Kushner made cast bronze wall sculptures for the lobby of the Entex Building, (1986) and fabricated components of Sitting/Stance, Battery Park City Hudson River Promenade (1988). Nancy Graves completed her largest work, the 27-foot high stainless steel fabricated Peripeteia, commissioned for the new Oakbrook Terrace Tower, Chicago, in 1988. Polich opened the foundry to public tours, which frequently included a spectacular metal pour, with > fig. 19 sparks flying, presided over by Polich Tallix brochure (detail), c. 1986, himself. One tour allowed visitors to Courtesy Dick witness actor Anthony Quinn at work on Polich his own sculpture.48 Employees produced a comic zine highlighting some of Tallix’s quirky characters. In Beacon, the art foundry became a distinctive culture, shaped by, but larger than the persona of its founder. The corporate structure of Tallix allowed it to adapt to the “new world order” following the end of the Cold War. The art market began its first period of rapid globalization in the early 1990s. New collections, fairs, and biennial exhibitions opened up in Asia, Russia, and South America. Polich, as usual, situated himself on the forefront. In 1990, he merged Tallix with the English company Bullers Plc, a fine art and sculpture foundry group. Polich became president of the newly named Tallix Morris Singer Ltd, which included foundries in Basingstoke and Birmingham, England, and , TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 31

internal steel armature. In his “collaboration” with a revered artist Canada, with a fourth opening dead nearly 500 years, Polich insisted later in Oakland, CA. The new that the artist’s vision and concept conglomerate aimed to satisfy an would be best served by contemporary international clientele with a global practices, not a blind faithfulness to presence, coordinated marketing, Leonardo’s original, yet unworkable, and economies of scale (fig. 23). In proposal. a letter to friends of Tallix, Polich The Leonardo’s Horse project wrote that the move would provide epitomized how, with the merger, Polich artists with a greater range of endeavored to maintain a high profile services, and employees with more for Tallix by initiating publications and secure jobs and even retirement exhibitions promoting Tallix. He hired plans.49 Initially, the merger led to photographer Ted Spiegel to visit the a burst of new commissions. Tallix foundry once a month to document the completed major public works many ongoing projects at various and by Richard Pousette-Dart evolving stages.52 A pair of exhibitions (Cathedral), Alexander Liberman also highlighted current art production (Venture), and Bill Reid (The at Tallix. In 1991 the Century Association Spirit of , the Black ), in New York City mounted Metallics: Art installed in the Canadian Embassy and Craft at the Tallix Foundry, featuring in Washington, D.C. (figs. 21, 22). At recent sculptures and documentary its peak in the early 1990s, Tallix had photos by Speigel. The exhibition about 185 employees at Beacon. Contemporary Russian Sculpture included Around this time Polich took on new castings by artists selected by Polich Charles Dent’s quixotic quest to cast on a trip to the former Soviet Union. The a 24-foot high bronze horse, based show appeared simultaneously at the on recently discovered sketches by Jonathan Poole Gallery, in Woodstock, Leonardo da Vinci. A retired airline England, and Tallix in Beacon. Neither pilot, Dent had initiated the exhibition gained much notice, however. Leonardo’s Horse project in 1979. The short-lived Tallix Morris Singer Dent contracted Tallix to make the dissolved by November 1991 when the casting of his model, and Polich contemporary art market contracted in became intimately involved with the recession. Polich and his backers the planning and engineering. bought back Tallix from Buller, and Tallix Presenting his technical notes at become independent again, but Polich an academic symposium in 1991, would not regain full control of the Polich determined that da Vinci’s foundry. original scheme to cast the statue in Throughout these corporate ups one mold using 80 tons of bronze and downs, Frank Stella (b. 1936) took couldn’t be realized.50 It would the lead in stimulating a new period of result in a cumbrous sculpture with creativity with Polich at the immense four-inch thick walls. The Duke of Beacon facility. Polich and Stella Sforza made the right choice in 1482, completed their first project together Polich opined, to use the bronze when Tallix cast bronze and fabricated for cannon instead of “having one aluminum elements of Stella’s Playskool of the biggest ingots in the world, sculptures, an edition of nine wall reliefs vaguely resembling a horse.”51 published by Tyler Graphics in 1983.53 A Polich presented a practical few years later, inspired by the sight of contemporary approach to this beluga whales behind glass in an conundrum, and aquarium, Stella initiated the planned to use eight to ten tons of Moby-Dick series. The series began bronze in sectional casts, with walls as prints with Tyler Graphics in 1985, about ⅜ inch thick, supported by an moved into colorfully painted cast aluminum reliefs based on paper 32 Dick Polich

(this page, top left) fig. 20: Tallix in

Beacon, Courtesy Dick Polich | (middle)

fig. 21: Pat Beyer with components of Bill

Reid’s The , The Black

Canoe in wax, c. 1991, Courtesy Dick

Polich © The Bill Reid Estate | (bottom,

right) fig. 22: Components of Bill Reid’s

The Spirit of Haida Gwaii, The Black Canoe

in ceramic shell, c. 1991, Courtesy Dick

Polich © The Bill Reid Estate | (bottom

left) fig. 23: Tallix Morris Singer brochure,

c. 1991, Courtesy Ted Spiegel TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 33

maquettes in 1988, and extended in his “Q” relief series, such as Brit (Q-6) into a series of monumental sculp- from 1990. A small, untitled work tures produced at Tallix, the last in features some of the elements, such as 1997. Of the 266 unique works in the free pours, distressed forms, smoke rings, Moby-Dick series, a large proportion fabricated sheets, and cast gating, which of the sculptures were produced at are seen in many of Stella’s larger works Tallix.54 Through this process, Stella of the same era (cat. 35). The stainless transitioned from being a painter to steel sculpture, a “piece of a piece” a sculptor, abetted by the free rein related to the “Alsace Lorraine” series granted him by Polich. (such as Bionville of 1992), remains Polich activated the entire unknown because much of Stella’s foundry for Stella’s experimentation, enormous production of this time period which involved every traditional is not fully documented.57 foundry technique and a host of In 1994 Stella brought famed new ones Stella improvised on-site. architect to Tallix, where Polich called this practice “a kind he created a range of sculptures that cast of careful carelessness.”55 Some and reconfigured elements from his techniques involved sheer violence architectural models, as well as elements and force, in acts of creative of the casting process itself. The presence destruction. Polich allowed Tallix of Meier also indicated a new market workers to crush and batter an for Polich’s business. Contemporary industrial tank, which Stella architects began designing facades and incorporated into the enormous interior walls clad in cast and fabricated The Town-Ho’s Story (installed in bronze, steel, or aluminum panels, a Chicago in 1993). Writer Robert tactile alternative to the featureless K. Wallace estimated that 70 to 80 curtain glass wall. Polich offered artists workers were involved in the and designers a range of possibilities, production of this 18-foot high demonstrated by his numerous test work.56 Polich also showed Stella plates of steel, copper, and aluminum how to control molten aluminum, with unique textured surfaces cast from to pour and splatter it so it would string, lace, and other soft materials (fig. solidify in random and painterly 25). A one-time aspiring architect, formations. In one of Polich’s test Polich’s most accomplished test pieces pieces for Stella, a tin based alloy and samples were never adopted, with a low melting point, formed however, because the results had “the expressive shapes without burning curse of randomness,” lacking digital the supporting Plexiglas. Stella first precision. In subsequent years, the panels used poured aluminum elements of the copper-bronze façade of Tod

< fig. 24 Nina Akamu, Leonardo da Vinci’s Horse in Milan, Italy © Da Vinci Science Center 34 Dick Polich

Williams and Billie Tsien’s American Folk Art Museum building (2001) were cast at Tallix. In 2007, Polich also produced a custom fence for Herzog de Meuron’s 40 Bond Street apartment building (fig. 29). The wavy metal forms, inspired by downtown graffiti, started as digital patterns that were machined in (top) Styrofoam then cast in aluminum. fig. 25 Aluminum test With the closing of Lippincott’s plate, Courtesy workshop in 1994, Tallix began to take Dick Polich on more large-scale fabrication jobs, (bottom) fig. 26 such as Claes Oldenburg and Coosje Frank Stella’s van Bruggen’s Torn Notebook (1994–1996) Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, for the University of Nebraska (fig. 27). Ein Schauspiel, Tallix’s portfolio remained diverse. The 3X at Polich Art Works, Courtesy foundry continued to restore cast and Dick Polich © Frank Stella/Artist fabricated sculptures, often correcting Rights Society, problems in the original construction. New York Polich refabricated Alexander Liberman’s produced posthumous casts deteriorating Adonai (fig. 28) in 2000 and of works by Donald De Lue and repaired Zhang Huan’s Three-Legged Paul Fiene. Tallix manufactured Buddha in 2012 for Storm King Art multiples for Harry Jackson and Center. As a contract foundry, Tallix also Erté. In 1995, Tallix produced a series of commemorative sculptures for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Through the expansion and ownership changes of Tallix, however, Polich felt embattled and adrift. Worse, he became removed from the creative process. Tallix was no longer his foundry and Polich itched to move on. In April 1995, Polich sent a letter to clients and artists, informing them that he planned to sell his stock in Tallix and resign his position as president, remaining as a consultant three days a week.58 By the end of the year, he left the business altogether. For Polich, it was 1968 all over again. He prepared for another personal and professional revolution.

Polich Art Works 1996–2006

The next act in the foundry life of Dick Polich began in 1996. He was 64, around the age when many people start retirement. Polich aimed to recover the close collaboration with artists that he cherished from the early days of Tallix. He started a new foundry, Polich Art Works (PAW), with 36 Dick Polich

financial support from friends including Frank Stella. PAW took over a 55,000 square foot former warehouse, roughly the area of a football field, in Rock Tavern, NY, near the Stewart International Airport and across the Hudson from Tallix in Beacon. Some craftspeople stayed at Tallix, while others joined Polich’s new operation. The 354-foot long building had four-story ceilings and an overhead bridge crane with a 50-ton capacity. For the first time, Polich could consolidate all the stations for metal casting and fabrication under one roof. “At (top) fig. 30 (opposite) fig. 32 PAW, we have a space that is open Don Nice, Polich Foundry, Emil Almazora enlarging Eric Fischl’s watercolor, 1998, Courtesy Arthur Ashe at Polich Art Works, and free: skylights, windows, Dick Polich (cat. 16) c. 2000, courtesy Dick Polich © Eric Fischl almost no walls, almost no fig. 31 boundaries,” a promotional Emil Almazora, Untitled, ink 59 on paper, 1999, Courtesy brochure averred. At PAW, Polich Dick Polich (cat. 2) reclaimed his role as the orchestra conductor, his preferred analogy for his role as both the interpreter of the artist’s composition and the leader of dozens of skilled players. Work on PAW commenced in Fall 1996, with Polich building out his facility as his team constructed Frank Stella’s major new commission for the Pohang Iron and Steel Company of South Korea. Stella pushed the foundry to use all available techniques at the time, including forming, crushing, ripping, digital cutting, 3D scanning, digital enlarging, and sand and lost wax casting, as well as free pouring without molds.60 This included detonating two-dozen sticks of dynamite deep inside the sculpture while buried six feet underground. In summer 1997, Stella and Polich completed Amabel, an enormous stainless work 33 feet high by 27 feet wide by 27 feet deep, and weighing over 35 tons. Polich recalls the restless demands of Stella to try new things as exhausting but exhilarating. This period became a second peak for Polich, after that of Nancy Graves, during which he fully involved himself in an artist’s methods. TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 37

Watercolors and ink drawings of Polich but still made art at Tallix, by visiting artist Don Nice (fig. 30) including Otterness’s Gulliver (2002) and PAW employee and sculptor (fig. 33). Employees still found Tallix a Emil Alzamora (fig. 31) capture the stimulating place to work. The public still energy and celebration in the early enjoyed the open tours. Journalists still days of this foundry. Major public considered Tallix a cultural anchor of works of the first few years in Rock the invigorated Beacon arts district, Tavern include Louise Bourgeois’s especially with the opening of 25-foot high fountain for Pittsburgh Dia:Beacon in 2003.62 Despite these (1999), subcontracted by Modern successes, Leonardo’s Horse, titled Il Art Foundry, and Eric Fischl’s Cavallo, stands out as the signature work 14-foot high Arthur Ashe Memorial: of Tallix’s post-Polich years. The public Soul in Flight, installed at the United presentation of the full-scale model in States Tennis Center, Flushing, New 1996 landed on the front page of The New York (2000) (fig. 32). York Times.63 In 1998 Tallix cast a new Meanwhile, over at Tallix, version, sculpted by Nina Akamu, and Polich’s ethos continued to affect his put the horse on display the next year former foundry, inspiring workers before shipping it to Milan, once again to strive to work closely with artists receiving worldwide media attention. to realize their concepts. Under the Though seen by thousands of visitors, it leadership of Peter Homestead, flopped aesthetically, ending up outside hired by Polich in 1986, Tallix the Milan racetrack, miles from city continued traditions started by the center (fig. 24).64 More a work of absent “spiritual leader.”61 The staff historical imagination than art, Il Cavallo still held annual art exhibitions, ended up being the best-known product shifting to the Howland Cultural of Tallix Beacon. Center in Beacon, and made annual Polich continued to innovate at PAW, Christmas castings of their own with the complete embrace of digital designs. Business was business. design. Polich had adopted computer- Artists like Tom Otterness and Joel aided design and production in the early Shapiro remained personally fond 1990s to increase precision and speed of cutting and fabrication. It took longer to harmonize the new digital tools with 38 Dick Polich

the resin cast of her hand (cat. 26) and digitally printed it three times larger. Surprised by the crater-like surface of the skin, Pondick worked closely with the PAW technicians to adjust the digital design so the scaled up skin appeared more naturalistic (fig. 34). The corrected oversized hand was digitally printed in green resin, over 18 inches long (cat. 25). A second mold was made and fitted with the sculpted cat to create the resin (top) fig. 33 master model (cat. 27). Finally, the Tom Otterness, Gulliver at SUNY work was cast in stainless steel and New Paltz, Cour- tesy the artist the body finished with a high polish and Marlborough and the hand in a matte surface to Gallery, New York, photo: Bob analog casting, which is far more show off the detailed texture (cat. Wagner labor-intensive and hands-on. Rona 24). The protracted, and expensive, fig. 34 Pondick (b. 1952) was among the first process became increasingly Rona Pondick, digital image of artists to creatively fuse traditional metal stressful for both Pondick and manipulation of Polich, yet both were willing to be skin texture on casting with digital design and 3D hand, Courtesy printing. Appropriately, her sculptural forgiving because the results were Polich Tallix and the artist forms are hybrids themselves. Pondick satisfying from a technological and began using digital tools in 1998 to aesthetic standpoint. Perhaps reduce the size of a cast of her head unwittingly, Cat can be seen as a for two of the eight figures in Monkeys symbol of the alliance of artist and (1998–2001).65 Four years later, Pondick foundry, abetted by 21st century started to work with a different part of technology and traditional her body—her hand—to hybridize a craftsmanship. The hand form is a different animal. visual pun for the foundry, which Pondick’s uncanny Cat (2002–5) is used a paw print as its mark. composed of a sculpted body of a feline Invigorated by his renewed combined with an enlarged life cast of collaborations with artists, Polich the artist’s hand.66 The multistage process extended his brand into the territory indicated a new way to simultaneously between sculpture and jewelry. In design and enlarge sculpture, updating 2000, he launched PAW Precious the traditional pantograph, a machine Metals, a new venture to cast with a long boom used to trace forms in a small-scale work in gold and silver, larger scale. Using the latest software and producing beautiful objects with 3D printing technology, Pondick scanned the presence of art and the intimacy of jewelry. A traveling exhibition, Silver + Gold, curated by Patricia Hamilton, launched the enterprise at the Baldwin Gallery, Aspen, CO, in 2000. Twelve new works, by artists such as , Ursula von Rydingsvard, Issac Witkin, , and Bryan Hunt, were featured in a handsome catalogue. Frank Stella’s Miami Bandshell (2000) (cat. 34), a miniature version of his band shell project for Miami commissioned in 1998, appeared TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 39

in the exhibition as well. The radiating swirls were inspired by Stella’s drive to invent a new geometry of sculpture that propelled the two-dimensional picture plane into three dimensions. These forms, derived from smoke rings and a Brazilian sun hat (a flat piece of foam with radiating cuts), appeared in the commission Prinz Friedrich von Homburg, Ein Schauspiel, 3X, made at Polich Art Works in 2001 (fig. 26). The large proportion of in the Silver + Gold exhibition was no exception to Polich’s current practice. At PAW, Polich created an open, cooperative atmosphere that seemed to be more welcoming of fig. 35 women artists than the earlier longtime clients. Tom Otterness (b. 1952) Tom Otterness’ incarnations of Tallix. For decades, began working with Polich in the early The Real World in progress at Tallix, Nancy Graves and Sterett-Gittings 1980s at the suggestion of his then dealer c. 1992, Courtesy Kelsey were among the few women Dick Polich, with Brooke Alexander and continues to make permission of the to produce sustained bodies of work monumental works with Polich in the artist with Polich. The mid-1990s ushered present. Tallix produced Otterness’s in another shift in American culture, celebrated The Tables in 1987 and The Real with many more women moving World for Battery Park City in 1992 (fig. into large scale, industrial, or 35). PAW also created the cast bronze fabricated sculpture. An increasing Mad Mom (2001), nearly ten feet high, number of women began working installed at the Frederik Meijer Gardens with Polich, creating works ranging and Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI. from the platoons of standing For its major Otterness exhibition in 2006, figures of Magdalena Abakanowicz the Meijer wished to have a piece that to the intimate gestures of Janine would explain the complicated process Antoni (b. 1964). Cradle (1999) is a of lost wax casting, in which a sculpture two-ton steel excavator bucket in goes from a positive (model) to negative which other types of metal scoops, (mold) to positive form (completed from a baby spoon to a tractor claw, work), with many painstaking steps are nested like Russian dolls. All the in between. The educational and elements are cast from steel melted playful How a Bronze Is Made (2006), a from a section cut from the largest collaboration between the artist and bucket. Antoni compares casting and foundry, tells the story of making a construction to child-rearing, both 12-inch version of Mad Mom from initial acts of creation that involve some sketches to final bronze (cat. 21). The degree of dislocation and pain. drawings and models by the artist, Another work, the silver Umbilical combined with the tools and casting (2000), incorporates a baby spoon materials of the foundry, form a witty with direct cast impressions of and didactic installation. Antoni’s mouth and her mother’s Just as Polich helped initiate Beacon’s hand (cat. 3). An intimate gesture renaissance, he became a proponent of of maternal nourishment, Umbilical art development in his new community turns the experience inside out, of Newburgh, NY. In 2004, Polich exposing the dark interiors of established the 10,000 square foot, familial bonds. four-floor Yellow Bird Gallery, named At PAW, Polich continued to after a Brancusi sculpture Polich maintain close relationships with admired, as an art center to help revive 40 Dick Polich

fig. 36 Charles Ray’s Untitled (Tractor) in progress at Polich Art Works, 2005, Courtesy Dick Polich © Charles Ray, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery

(opposite) fig. 37 Do Ho Suh’s Newburgh’s waterfront area. Yellow Bird art. Polich relishes the details of Karma in became a showplace for sculpture these conspicuous displays of labor progress at Polich Tallix, produced at the foundry, presenting and process. Charles Ray brought 2010, Courtesy Dick Polich © Do major exhibitions by Michael Steiner in hundreds of components of a tractor Ho Suh, Courtesy 2005 and Emil Alzamora in 2006. The that were hand-made by his studio of the Artist and Lehmann Maupin venture didn’t last long, however, despite assistants, including the engine Gallery, New York positive media and community interest. parts and crawler treads, to be and Hong Kong Once again, Polich focused all his individually cast in aluminum and energies into growing his foundry. In then reassembled to become his October 2006, Polich Art Works and Tallix trompe l’oeil sculpture Untitled merged after a decade of competition (Tractor) (2003–5) (fig. 36). Another to form Polich Tallix Fine Art Foundry. artist, Christopher Wool, sent in a Roughly three-quarters of the Tallix staff crumpled piece of wire a few inches rejoined Polich.67 The combined staff high as the model for his sculpture, blended well, as both foundries were which was fabricated in steel and born of Polich’s vision and vitality. specially engineered. The resulting Wire #2 (2012) was installed in the front of the Guggenheim Museum Polich Tallix 2006–2014 during Wool’s 2013 retrospective. Do Ho Suh’s towering Karma originated The range and diversity of artists who in a digital file sent to Polich Tallix in have produced work at Polich Tallix 2010 (fig. 37). There was no physical since 2006 speak to the true globalization model until Polich’s team digitally of the art market. The deep pockets of printed it, then scaled it up to 22 feet collectors and galleries are able to high. Ursula von Rydingsvard had support the expensive casting and her large cedar sculpture Ona cast production of craft-intensive metal in bronze at Polich Tallix and then sculptures by a great number of artists installed outside the Barclays Center, with international backgrounds, (fig. 38). Though including Ghada Amer, Chris Ofili, and monumental abstract sculpture Zheng Xiaogang. Artists working at has been a staple of the New York Polich Tallix have continued to present City landscape since the 1960s, new challenges that result in brilliantly the difficult and expensive task conceptualized and crafted works of of creating, transporting, and installing a nearly six ton metal sculpture continues to fascinate.68 TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 41 42 Dick Polich

dome that supports three links of a broken chain. The work appears to be the visible portion of a subterranean ball and chain, a potent symbol of the university’s past connections to slave owners and traders which was little known until Brown president Ruth Simmons formed the Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice in 2003. Ductile iron is an ideal material for the memorial, recalling both historical artifact and minimalist sculpture. Puryear’s concentrated forms relate to an earlier Polich-produced memorial, Joel Shapiro’s two-part bronze Loss and Regeneration (1993), installed in the front plaza of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, which Tallix cast directly from wood timbers (fig. 39). Among all the artists who have worked with Polich, Shapiro has (top) Other current areas of innovation perhaps the longest working fig. 38 Dick Polich for Polich are the use of new alloys. relationship, dating back to 1969. and Ursula von In 2011, Polich Tallix fabricated and Rydingsvard Currently, Polich is keen on ductile iron, discussing Ona, a more flexible and durable form of cast painted Shapiro’s towering 32-foot 2012, Courtesy Dick Polich, with iron. Though ductile iron has been blue aluminum For Jennifer, installed permission of the outside the Art Museum. artist available for decades, and Duca used it at MIT, Polich only recently has been Continuing to produce work at

fig. 39 offering it to artists making major works. Polich Tallix in the present, Shapiro Dick Polich, Martin Puryear (b. 1941) is based in the has developed an untitled series James Cuno, and Joel Shapiro Hudson Valley, so Polich Tallix is his local of ductile iron floor sculptures cast discussing Loss from burnt wood. These works and Regeration, foundry. Working with Polich since 2005, c. 1992, Photo: Puryear is a meticulous wood carver revisit his earliest metal sculpture Ted Spiegel who, like Noguchi, has slowly accepted while utilizing one of Polich’s the unique properties and possibilities of preferred metals of today, which metal casting. Also like Noguchi, Puryear has both the gravitas of iron and the is a designer of sensitive public minute surface detailing of bronze monuments that use an abstracted (cat. 31). The quality and duration geometric vocabulary to reference of this 45-year relationship between historical experience. Polich Tallix is an artist and fabricator is unusual in casting Puryear’s Slavery Memorial contemporary American sculpture, for Brown University, installed on and perhaps can only be compared campus in August 2014. Puryear’s to artists who work with 15-inch diameter maquette, seen here in ductile iron (cat. 28), will be scaled up to over 11 feet in diameter. The form is a TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 43

printmakers. The artist-printmaker relationship has been explored in countless exhibitions, while the sculptor-foundry relationship is only now being documented. Northeast allows artists to visit the A Hudson Valley Master foundry repeatedly and monitor the progress of their works and make The Hudson River Valley was one alterations and interventions as needed. of the first areas of America to Artists can be far more involved, and industrialize. It was also the first to even hands-on, when the foundry is 80, adopt environmentalist values and not 8,000, miles away. The propinquity shift to a service economy. Polich of Polich and the extraordinary artists Tallix is an exemplar of the with whom he works allows for the technology and craft-oriented push-pull between artist and foundry “creative class” businesses that that can transcend formula and result have become the innovators in in truly innovative work. Polich Tallix, the new American economy as like Tallix and PAW before it, continues heavy industry and large-scale Polich’s role as conductor of a crackerjack manufacturing have moved orchestra, fulfilling an artist’s creative abroad. In Tallix’s first ten years, vision. “The artist’s desire rules us,” numerous specialized art Polich wrote of Tallix in 1982. This foundries followed Polich’s lead statement is equally true today at and opened up across America, Polich Tallix.69 notably Carlson and Company In 2012, Dick Polich entered his in San Fernando, CA, in 1971, the 80th year. He works in the foundry Johnson Atelier near Princeton, practically every day. Making art for NJ, in 1974, and the Walla Walla artists remains the center of his life, Foundry in Walla Walla, WA as it has since 1969. in 1980. Some grew into business competitors for Polich, while other foundries, clustered in New York, Colorado, and New Mexico, served a regional clientele. Many have closed. New international competitors have opened in Britain and China. Running a successful foundry that overcomes the fluctuating global markets in commodities, labor, and art is a perennial challenge. The need for a high quality American art foundry like Polich Tallix remains as compelling today as in the early 1960s, when Dick Polich learned his craft at MIT. Polich Tallix’s proximity to the population centers of the 44 Dick Polich

15 Wendy Gilvey, video interview with Stephen Spaccarelli, October 2013.

1 Roger Ericksen started Argos in 1992. Insun Kim 16 Thom Joyce, video interview with Stephen opened Beacon Fine Art Foundry in 2005. Christopher Spaccarelli, January 7, 2014. Powers and Kurt Wulfmeyer founded KC Fabrications 17 Polich said he learned this from Bob Spring (son in 2006. of Modern Art Foundry owner John Spring). 2 Michelle Kuo, “Industrial Revolution: The History of 18 Oral history interview with Joel Shapiro, July 15– Fabrication,” ArtForum (October 2007): 306–315, 396. December 14, 1988, , This special issue of ArtForum on “The Art of Smithsonian Institution. http://www.aaa. Production” includes insightful articles, artists’ si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history- statements, and a roundtable. In the past decade interview-joel-shapiro-11748 there have been books or exhibitions about several 19 Hendel Teichert, Joel Shapiro: Sculpture and fabricators including Lippincott, the Walla Walla Drawings (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1998), Foundry, and Mike Smith Studios. See bibliography. p. 36. 3 Richard F. Polich, “Engineers and Artists: Making and 20 Gray went with father-in-law Alexander Innovating,” in Tribute Proceeding Merton C. Flemings Liberman to scavenge many of the wood and Symposium on Solidification and Material Processing metal forms of the original constructions. (Warrendale, Pa.: The Minerals, Metals, and Materials , interview, October Society, 2001): n.p. 21, 2013. 4 This and all other references to Polich’s life are sourced 21 Nicolas Fox Weber, Cleve Gray (New York: Harry from a series of conversations and interviews with N. Abrams, 1998), p. 97. Polich between March 2013 and April 2014. 22 Daniel Robbins, Cleve Gray: 29 Bronzes (New 5 Richard Severo, “From Feast to Crucible: The Story of York: Betty Parsons Gallery, 1973). Polich Art Works,” pamphlet (Rock Tavern, NY: Polich 23 Sterett-Gittings Kelsey, interview, November Art Works, 1998), p. 23. 9, 2013. 6 Merton Flemings, phone interview, February 27, 2014. 24 The other print in the series with Tallix-made 7 “$10,000 Grant to Research in Casting Art Objects at elements is Entablature VII (1977). MIT,” The Tech, January 16, 1959. Online http://tech. 25 Thanks to Emelie Owens, assistant curator, mit.edu/V78/PDF/V78-N54.pdf Kenneth Tyler Collection, National Gallery of 8 Alfred M. Duca, Merton C. Flemings, and Howard F. Australia. Taylor, “Art Casting,” paper, Cambridge, Mass.: 26 See Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Archives. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1963. 27 James DePasquale, phone interview, March 2014. 9 Sandy Saunders, interview, February 26, 2014. 28 , “Lichtenstein Sculpture: Multiple 10 The precise year that Polich started his first foundry Personalities: A Quick Survey of Five Decades” remains uncertain, with dates ranging from 1968 to in Lichtenstein: Sculpture and Drawings 1970. All of the published Tallix brochures list its (Washington DC: The , first year as 1970, but this does not take into account 1999), pp. 9–26. the earlier foundry in the Saunders garage. 29 List generously provided by Natasha Sigmund, 11 Duke Newcome, “Sculpture Casting Gets First Change registrar, The Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Since Its Beginning in Ancient Egypt,” Palm Beach Daily 30 The Sculpture of Nancy Graves: A Catalogue News, January 17, 1966. Raisonné (New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1987). 12 Avnet-Shaw formed an Art Casting division in 1966, 31 Richard F. Polich, “Engineers and Artists: under the leadership of sculptor Joel Meisner. Meisner Making and Innovating,” in Tribute Proceeding bought the foundry and reopened it as the Joel Meisner Merton C. Flemings Symposium on Solidification Foundry in 1973. See Daniel Grant, The Business of Being and Material Processing, Warrendale, Pa.: The an Artist (New York: Allworth Press, 2000), p. 171. Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society, 2001. 13 Elden Tefft established an art foundry for lost wax n.p. bronze casting at the University of Kansas in 1953, 32 Richard F. Polich, “Tallix,” in Casting (1982), n.p and founded the International Sculpture Center in 33 Michael Shapiro, “Four Sculptors on Bronze 1960, whose biennial conferences encouraged others Casting,” Arts Magazine 58 (December 1983), to open art foundries at universities. See Tom Walsh, pp. 111–117. in Casting: A Survey of Cast Metal Sculpture in the 80’s 34 Avis Berman, “Nancy Graves’ New Age of (San Francisco: Fuller Goldeen Gallery, 1982), n.p. Bronze,” ArtNews 85 (February 1986), pp. 56–64. 14 Dick Polich, video interview with Stephen Spaccarelli, 35 Invoices from early 1985 itemized the various October 2013. TRANSFORMING METAL INTO ART 45

casts that form Looping and other works. Voyage to Crete, the gating and shell of J. Clayton Nancy Graves Foundation Archives. Bright’s Coursing, the welding of Willem de 36 Putnam developed unique methods of Kooning’s Seated Woman, the finishing of a Tom patination for artists including Graves, Mary Otterness “small monument,” and the finishing Frank, Helen Frankenthaler, Marisol, Michael of John Dreyfuss’s Small Seal. See “Agenda for Steiner, and Bill Tucker. Photography for October 17, 1991,” courtesy Ted 37 The Sculpture of Nancy Graves: A Catalogue Spiegel. Spiegel and writer John Kelsey had a contract Raisonné, p. 110. with Abrams to produce a fully illustrated book about 38 We see this in the cast gates and ceramic shell Tallix, but the manuscript was not accepted after a new fragments that appear in Graves’ Aves (1979), editor was assigned to the project. Tom Otterness’s bronze The Tables (1987), and 53 Tallix first made experimental relief castings in Frank Stella’s stainless steel Thionville (1992). different metals from Stella’sPolish Village series 39 Richard F. Polich to Nancy Graves, August 23, around 1976, but this project was abandoned. Ken 1982. Nancy Graves Foundation Archives. Tyler, presentation at International Sculpture Center, 40 The other two large works were Reclining Figure 2011. Online: http://tylerblogs.com/2011/05/04/ (1982) and Standing Figure (1984). For images, see frank-stella-awarded-the-iscs-lifetime-achievement- Willem de Kooning Sculpture: An Illustrated award/ Checklist of the Complete Sculpture (New York: 54 Robert K. Wallace, Frank Stella’s Moby Dick: Words and Matthew Marks Gallery, 1996). Shapes (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2000), p. 4. 41 Betsy Brown, “In Peekskill, the Foundry Behind 55 Polich, quoted in Wallace, Frank Stella’s Moby Dick, the Art,” , September 16, 1984. p. 204. 42 This tradition continued with the “Art Behind 56 Wallace, Frank Stella’s Moby Dick, p. 203. Art” series of exhibitions of art by Tallix 57 Identified by Frank Stella, per email from Paula Pelosi, employees at the Howland Cultural Center, in April 7, 2014. 1998 and 1999. 58 Richard F. Polich to Roy Lichtenstein, letter, April 9, 43 List generously provided by Dakin Hart, Senior 1995. Lichtenstein Foundation Archives. Curator, The Noguchi Foundation and Garden 59 Polich Art Works, brochure, n.d., courtesy Dick Polich. Museum. 60 “Frank Stella Completes One of the Largest 44 Tallix seems to have cast the bronze from an Commissions of His Career at Polich Art Works, a aluminum version of Strange Bird produced in Major New Sculpture Foundry,” press release, July 18, the 1970s. 1997, courtesy Ted Spiegel. 45 Jeff Koons interview with Klaus Ottmann, 61 Paul Grondahl, “Molten Metal Becomes Art,” Times Journal of Contemporary Art v. 1 n.1 (1988): 18-23. Union (Albany, N.Y.), February 7, 1988. Online: http://www.jca-online.com/koons.html 62 Randy Kennedy, “Where Creative Heat Meets Molten 46 Tallix brochure, February 7, 1986. Nancy Graves Metal,” The New York Times, August 13, 2004. Foundation Archives. 63 Monte Williams, “A Horse of Another Century: 47 John Duvoli, “Engineering, Art Are Partners at Building Leonardo’s Colossus,” The New York Times, Beacon’s Tallix Foundry,” Hudson Valley Business August 18, 1996. Journal, April 8, 1991, p. 5. 64 A second 24-foot version is at the Meijer Gardens and 48 Tallix flyer, n.d., courtesy Dick Polich. Sculpture Park. Smaller versions are elsewhere on 49 Richard F. Polich to Friends of Tallix, April 23, public view and in private collections. 1990. The Roy Lichtenstein Foundation Archives. 65 “Rona Pondick Interviewed by Barbara Wally,” in 50 Richard F. Polich, “Engineering and Casting an Rona Pondick: Works 1986–2008 (Salzburg: Internationale Eighty-Ton Horse to Stand on Two Legs,” in Sommerakademie für Bildende Kunst, 2008), p. 30. Leonardo da Vinci’s Sforza Monument Horse: The 66 For a detailed description of this process, see George Art and the Engineering (Bethlehem, PA: Lehigh Fifield, “Pondick and Technology,” in Rona Pondick: The University Press, 1995), p. 136. Metamorphosis of an Object (Worcester, MA: Worcester 51 Polich, “Engineering and Casting an Eighty-Ton Art Museum, 2009), pp. 104–112. Horse,” p. 141. 67 Craig Wolf, “Beacon Foundry to Close,” Poughkeepsie 52 The shooting agenda for October 17, 1991 Journal, October 16, 2006. comprised: the mold for Elliot Offner’s Heron, 68 Emma Allen, “Talk of the Town: Night Move,” The New the enlarging of Don Wiegand’s Mary, Mother of Yorker, September 16, 2013. the Church, the finishing of Charles O. Perry’s 69 Richard F. Polich, “Tallix,” in Casting, n.p. Double Knot, the enlarging of André Harvey’s Pond Dancer, the patina of Reuben Nakian’s