For the next month, Cutter & Cutter Fine Art will display the world’s largest collection of work of one of America’s most influential sculptors at its gallery in Ponte Vedra Beach.
Opened to the public the weekend of Sept. 7-8, the exhibition features some of the most iconic pieces of Frederick Hart, a National Medal of Arts recipient. Included in the exhibition are a scale model of “The Three Soldiers,” which is the bronze statue on the Washington, D.C., National Mall commemorating the Vietnam War; a scale model of “Ex Nihilo,” which adorns the Washington National Cathedral; “Study of the Artist’s Wife;” “The Source 1/2 Life;” and many more. The exhibition will be on display at the Ponte Vedra Beach gallery until mid-October.
Lindy Hart, the wife of the late Frederick Hart, and Madeline Kisting, the former agent of the acclaimed sculptor, attended the opening reception for the exhibit and both expressed their approval.
“It was very impressive to see all of this work together in one beautiful gallery,” Lindy Hart said. “Some of the pieces I haven’t seen for a while, so it was really nice to reacquaint myself with some of the pieces.”
Kisting echoed those sentiments.
“I think the thoughtful presentation in how they married pieces together and their placement told a really wonderful, complete story,” she said. “It was just a very thoughtful presentation.”
The exhibition also explores the parallels between Hart and another historically significant sculptor, Auguste Rodin. Both artists are considered bookends of the 20th century in their field and experienced similar career paths to their ultimate success of making the human figure “sublime.”
“They’re going after the same goal even though they’re separated by all this time,” Matthew Cutter said. “When you look stylistically, they don’t look identical, but they still give you an energy to the work. You can appreciate both styles.”
Overall, Cutter said the exhibition is a “must see” for people in the community.
“If you don’t visit these artists now and you see these styles, imagine if it fell away out of history,” he said. “You’re going to see it revisited through another artist’s eyes in that contemporary time that they lived. … Somebody who sculpts classical now in the 21st century is going to look at it different compared to somebody who sculpted classical in the 19th century, because they have different sensibilities. That’s why it’s definitively important. You don’t want to lose that.”
