James David Esterly Jr. (May 10, 1944 – June 15, 2019) was an American

limewood ''Tilia'' is a genus of about 30 species of trees or bushes, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Britain and Ireland they ...

carver, self-described sculptor and writer. He was known as an exponent of the high-relief naturalistic style of the British carver Grinling Gibbons (1648–1721).

Early life and education

Esterly was born in Akron, Ohio but raised in

Orange County Orange County most commonly refers to: *Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area Orange County may also refer to: U.S. counties *Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando *Orange County, Indiana *Orange County, New ...

, California. He received a BA from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and a BA and Ph.D. from Cambridge, where he read English at St Catharine's College and was a

Fulbright Scholar The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. His doctoral dissertation on Yeats and Plotinus was supervised by

Thomas Rice Henn Thomas Rice Henn (1901–1974) was an Irish literary critic. Life Henn was born in Albert House, County Sligo, Ireland and educated in Fermoy and later at Aldenham School before gaining an Exhibition at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, where ...

. He had rejected the idea of an academic career even before a conversion experience in 1974, when the sight of a Grinling Gibbons carving behind the altar at St. James, Piccadilly turned him towards

woodcarving Wood carving is a form of woodworking by means of a cutting tool (knife) in one hand or a chisel by two hands or with one hand on a chisel and one hand on a mallet, resulting in a wooden figure or figurine, or in the sculptural ornamentation ...

. Esterly retreated to a cottage in

Sussex Sussex (), from the Old English (), is a historic county in South East England that was formerly an independent medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom. It is bounded to the west by Hampshire, north by Surrey, northeast by Kent, south by the English ...

where he taught himself to carve in the high-relief illusionistic style of Gibbons. After the 1986 fire at Hampton Court he spent a year re-carving the seven foot long Gibbons drop destroyed in the flames. The experience inspired his memoir ''The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making'' (2012). In 1998 he curated the Grinling Gibbons exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, which was named as one of the exhibitions of the year by the art journal Apollo. His accompanying book, ''Grinling Gibbons and the Art of Carving'' (fifth printing, March 2013), was described as “a marvelous study” that has “a rare intimacy with its subject." Esterly’s own carving began as decorative foliage work but developed in the direction of still life sculpture, trophy-like tableaus, and botanical heads in the manner of Giuseppe Arcimboldo, which he began carving in 2002 while a guest artist at the American Academy in Rome. He worked on commission for patrons in the United States, Britain, and Europe. Retrospective exhibitions took place in 2013 in New York City and at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Art Institute in Utica, NY.

Personal life

Esterly was married to Marietta von Bernuth and lived in the rural hamlet of Barneveld in upstate New York. In 2019, at the age of 74, he revealed that he had been diagnosed with

ALS Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as motor neuron disease (MND) or Lou Gehrig's disease, is a neurodegenerative disease that results in the progressive loss of motor neurons that control voluntary muscles. ALS is the most com ...

. With the help of assistants, he completed his final commission for the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. He died at his home in Barneveld on June 15, 2019.David Esterly obituary
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Examples of David Esterly's Work

File:Musical trophy 2004.jpg, Musical trophy, limewood, 2004. File:Botanical head 2005.jpg, Botanical head, 2005. File:Overmantel 2007.jpg, Overmantel (detail), 2007.

Bibliography

* ''Grinling Gibbons and the Art of Carving'', Abrams, 1998 * ''The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making'', Viking/Penguin, 2013

External links

Official site

Supplementary material for ''The Lost Carving''

Re-Creating The 'Lost Carving' Of An English Genius

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Esterly, David 1944 births 2019 deaths Artists from Akron, Ohio Writers from Akron, Ohio Harvard University alumni American woodcarvers Alumni of the University of Cambridge