Sarasota Estate Auction
Lot 941
This is a large sculpture of The Singing Chef by Jack Dowd, a Sarasota-based artist who creates paintings and sculptures of artists, celebrities, and everyday people with a very human-like feel to them, and his sculpture of The Singing Chef has a light, playful touch to it. It was made from gypsum cement in 2009 and comes on a large wooden base. Born in New York in 1938, Jack was inspired by his father and began sketching and drawing at an early age. He started sculpting in the ’70s, when he lived in Plainfield, Vermont. He began with a chainsaw and blocks of wood, then started working in clay because it was more flexible: he used wire mesh to build a form, then molded the clay around it and made a model, turned that into a rubber mold, and cast bronze or gypsum cement figures from the mold, and his sculptures combine avant-garde and folk art together. The artist has a private studio called Moon River in Sarasota and has had many solo solo exhibitions sponsored by museums and art centers across the country, including the Florida State Museum of Fine Art, Jacksonville’s Museum of Modern Art, and the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, which drew 40,000 visitors and was the best attended opening in the museum’s history. The figure is signed by chefs from the Ritz Carlton, Cafe L’Europe, and other restaurants in Sarasota. The sculpture is attached to the base, and the two together stand about 69 inches tall. The chef is 45 in. tall x 22 1/2 in. wide, and the base measures 24 in. high x 22 in. wide x 22 in. deep. The sculpture is a perfect decoration for people who love to cook and entertain, or for someone who owns a culinary business. Size: 68 1/2 x 23 x 22 in.
