GIRARD'S DAVID: A SMALL MIRACLE IN TERRA COTTA
Master of Mud (aka artist) and former Center for Creative Studies (CCS), Detroit, professor of art, Bill (William J.) Girard Jr., passed away in 2011. The website created to honor him is found at https://girardsvasari.com/
If you wonder where this is going, think about one of the most famous pieces of sculpture in the western world: Michelangelo's sculpture, David. Actually, that's misleading. That's just where it starts. Maybe.
Maybe it starts with Genesis 2:7. “Then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life…”
Loosely translated, this passage is a recipe for terra cotta: Take clay and make something so amazing that it takes on a life of its own. It's a tremendous challenge.
- Ambitious
- Interested in tackling one of the more popular themes in art and biblical history
- Really into sexy, famous men
- Fascinated by anatomy and the challenge of capturing 3-D, dynamic plasticity and making it profound
- Who has a patron with one or more of the preceding interests
- Ect.
To be fair, "David and Goliath" is a hugely popular theme in art history. And there are a bunch of other noteworthy Davids from the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Donatello's sinuous, adolescent nude, for example. Bernini's ripped version...
Fact: I have no idea why the artist, William Jefferson Girard, Jr., (aka Bill) actually decided to create a DAVID of his own. The forgoing is simple surmise.
Fact: Girard's "primary" patron at the time DAVID was created, and its owner until his own death, was one Allen Abramson. In later years, Abramson displayed Girard's diminutive DAVID in his foyer, right in front of Girard's massive and highly erotically charged, SNAKE CHARMER. To it's right sat a framed image of the Dali Lama - the 14th, I believe. See image at top of post.
Now, look again.
Girard’s DAVID is on his knees, rock in hand, grabbing his sling. His lyre is slung over his back. His cloak - a fur - is askew, some of it rests beneath him. It is exactly at this moment that he seems to see the massive, majestic and deadly Goliath, perhaps for the first time. His brows register shock. His jaw drops. Oh God!
Artists measure their work against those of predecessors and contemporaries. Verrocchio’s David is a spindly youth. Michelangelo’s titanic David is confident, a master of fate. Bernini’s pivoting David is bold and grimly determined.
Girard’s small, shapely, shepherd boy is none of these – though closest in spirit to Bernini, I think. His David is a young man with a plan – not a hardened warrior - facing a reality far grimmer than he had imagined.
For God's sake, he's about to go into battle, and he's still carrying his lyre. Girard’s DAVID is the epitome of a long shot.
This diminutive terra cotta bozetto (sketch), by my lights, is an accomplishment much greater than its dimensions. It strides the path of major classic artists. It is imaginative, but realistic. It breathes vivacity. It contains much of the energy of the masterworks on which it is modeled, but stakes out a vision that’s compelling and fresh.
It is created by a young, almost wholly self-educated artist in an art historical period essentially inimical to figurative art in the spirit of the Renaissance, making it a "new renaissance" piece.
Abramson loved DAVID. But then, he loved everything Girard made. He hoarded Girards the way other art collectors (reportedly) hoard their masterpieces. While I don’t have an accurate count of the number of Girards in his possession when he passed, there were certainly several hundred. And multiple masterpieces. But there wasn’t another terra cotta like DAVID.
Girard clearly felt that particular piece was special. In the year before he died of cancer, Girard asked Abramson if he could borrow DAVID back, to have near him in his last days.
Despite years of mutual antagonism that had led to a complete break between the two men, Abramson graciously returned DAVID to it's maker.
That's where I first noticed it, I believe. A few months before Girard died, my wife and I travelled to Michigan to visit with him while he was still able to enjoy company.It was there, at his house, that I first really "saw" the piece. It excited me. A lot. I begged permission to take photos, for reference, and Bill obliged. The photos weren’t good. Neither my equipment nor my photography skills were up to the challenge.
According to Chris Girard, the artist's son, Bill had the terra cotta DAVID on his bedside table when he died. Clearly, it was deeply meaningful to him.Abramson was anxious to have DAVID back once Bill died. But Chris... well, he felt it was part of his father's legacy. He refused to return it. And he may not have been aware that it had come from Allen; however, I doubt it.
Mind you, Allen Abramson had praised Chris to the skies, to me, for his extraordinary commitment to caring for his father as he died. He had allowed Chris to come into his own home and video his massive collection of Girard art for a documentary that Chris had in mind.
Other Posts
- GIRARD? GIRARD WHO?
- BILL GIRARD: THE PODCAST
- GIRARD PAINTING "RIMA" HITS MARKET
- GIRARD'S U of M ART EXHIBIT FIASCO (1981): JUDY IN THE STARS
- NOTED GERMAN SCIENTIST CRACKS HIEROGLYPHIC CODE OF ARTIST BILL GIRARD
- BILL GIRARD: ART ARISTOCRACY?
- DETROIT NEWS ART CRITIC REVIEWS BILL GIRARD (1967)
- GIRARD: THE FAIRY'S TALE. PART I - A PROSE POEM FOR PERFORMANCE
- CONVERSATION WITH AN EARLY GIRARD COLLECTOR: MR. DOUBLEDAY
- ART AS ANODYNE FOR A YOUNG PATIENT: A GIRARD ANECDOTE
- GIRARD'S PINCKNEY, MICHIGAN, MURALS (CIRCA 2005)
- 2 ARTISTS. 4 PAINTINGS. WHICH GET IN THE SHOW?
- A LETTER FROM BILL: THE "NION" WOMAN
- GIRARD LIMERICK #1: THERE ONCE WAS AN ARTIST NAMED BILL
- GIRARD LIMERICK #2: GIRARD FOUND THE KEY TO HIS ART IN THE ATTIC
- A FASCINATION WITH FAIRIES. (EXCERPT)
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Master of Mud (aka artist) and former Center for Creative Studies (CCS), Detroit, professor of art, Bill (William J.) Girard Jr., passed away in 2011. The website created to honor him is found at https://girardsvasari.com/
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