The Modern Art Foundry is an historic

foundry A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal into a mold, and removing the mold material after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals pr ...

Astoria, Queens Astoria is a neighborhood in the western portion of the New York City borough of Queens. Astoria is bounded by the East River and is adjacent to three other Queens neighborhoods: Long Island City to the southwest, Sunnyside to the southeast ...

, New York, founded in 1932 by John Spring. His descendants continue to operate the business in what used to be the carriage house of the

Steinway Mansion The Steinway Mansion (also the Benjamin Pike, Jr. House) is a home on a one-acre hilltop in the Astoria section of Queens, New York City. It was built in 1858, originally on on the Long Island Sound, by Benjamin Pike Jr., born in 1809, a note ...

. Modern Art Foundry specializes in working with artists who create limited edition works, usually intended for museums and galleries. The foundry utilizes the

lost-wax casting Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) i ...

method for producing its large-scale work. It also does maintenance and conservation of existing works.

History

John Spring, a Polish immigrant, started his business in 1932 on Astoria Boulevard, at the end near what is now the

Socrates Sculpture Park Socrates Sculpture Park is an outdoor museum and public park where artists can create and exhibit sculptures and multi-media installations. It is located one block from the Noguchi Museum at the intersection of Broadway and Vernon Boulevard in th ...

. In 1947, the foundry moved from its location near the

East River The East River is a saltwater tidal estuary in New York City. The waterway, which is actually not a river despite its name, connects Upper New York Bay on its south end to Long Island Sound on its north end. It separates the borough of Queens ...

to where it is at present. Spring built the business on close relationships with a small group of "prominent and prolific" artists. Among the artists who have worked there are

Jose de Creeft José Mariano de Creeft (November 27, 1884 - September 11, 1982) was a Spanish-born American artist, sculptor, and teacher known for modern sculpture in stone, metal, and wood, particularly figural works of women. His 16 ft bronze ''Alice i ...

Jacques Lipchitz Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, dominated by a synthetic style of Cr ...

Louise Bourgeois Louise Joséphine Bourgeois (; 25 December 191131 May 2010) was a French-American artist. Although she is best known for her large-scale sculpture and installation art, Bourgeois was also a prolific painter and printmaker. She explored a varie ...

Gaston Lachaise Gaston Lachaise (March 19, 1882 – October 18, 1935) was a French-born sculptor, active in the early 20th century. A native of Paris, he was most noted for his female nudes such as '' Standing Woman''. Gaston Lachaise was taught the refinement o ...

Joan Miró Joan Miró i Ferrà ( , , ; 20 April 1893 – 25 December 1983) was a Catalan painter, sculptor and ceramicist born in Barcelona. A museum dedicated to his work, the Fundació Joan Miró, was established in his native city of Barcelona i ...

Alexander Archipenko Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (also referred to as Olexandr, Oleksandr, or Aleksandr; uk, Олександр Порфирович Архипенко, Romanized: Olexandr Porfyrovych Arkhypenko; February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian and American ...

, and

Isamu Noguchi was an American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public artworks, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several ...

Operations

In contrast to most foundries that have switched over to

ceramic shell casting Ceramic forming techniques are ways of forming ceramics, which are used to make everything from tableware such as teapots to engineering ceramics such as computer parts. Pottery techniques include the potter's wheel, slip casting and many others. ...

, Modern Art utilizes the

method for producing its large-scale work. Workers first create a wax copy of the artist's original model and then apply a plastic coating to it. The mold is then fired in a

kiln A kiln is a thermally insulated chamber, a type of oven, that produces temperatures sufficient to complete some process, such as hardening, drying, or chemical changes. Kilns have been used for millennia to turn objects made from clay int ...

, which causes the wax to melt away. Molten bronze is then poured into the mold. This method yields an exact bronze replica of the artist's original model. The foundry is known for its exacting and innovative work. Bourgeois chose the foundry to cast the Maman sculpture because of its reputation and output. In the early 1960s,

Jasper Johns Jasper Johns (born May 15, 1930) is an American painter, sculptor, and printmaker whose work is associated with abstract expressionism, Neo-Dada, and pop art. He is well known for his depictions of the American flag and other US-related top ...

cast "Light Bulb," "Flashlight; Painted Bronze (ale cans)", "Painted Bronze (paintbrushes)", "Flag", and "Bronze (Light Bulb, Socket, Wire on Grid" at the foundry. In 2002, artisans at the foundry replaced the original zinc statues that were part of the 1867 Civil War Soldiers Monument in the

Green-Wood Cemetery Green-Wood Cemetery is a cemetery in the western portion of Brooklyn, New York City. The cemetery is located between South Slope/ Greenwood Heights, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Borough Park, Kensington, and Sunset Park, and lies several blo ...

, Brooklyn, with bronze replicas.

Gallery

File:Hans_Christian_Andersen,_by_Georg_John_Lober.jpg, Hans Christian Andersen, by Georg John Lober, located in

Central Park Central Park is an urban park in New York City located between the Upper West Side, Upper West and Upper East Sides of Manhattan. It is the List of New York City parks, fifth-largest park in the city, covering . It is the most visited urban par ...

File:Ideal Scout.png,

The Ideal Scout ''The Ideal Scout'', also known as ''The Boy Scout'', is the most famous work by Canadian sculptor R. Tait McKenzie (1867–1938). The original statue stood in front of the Cradle of Liberty Council at 22nd and Winter Streets in Philadelphia, Penn ...

by R. Tait McKenzie in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

and other locations File:Boy Scout Memorial-27527.jpg,

Boy Scout Memorial The Boy Scout Memorial is a public artwork by American sculptor Donald De Lue, located at The Ellipse in Washington, D.C., United States. The ''Boy Scout Memorial'' serves as a tribute to the Boy Scouts of America. Description The sculpture con ...

Donald De Lue Donald Harcourt De Lue (October 5, 1897, Boston, Massachusetts – August 26, 1988, Leonardo, New Jersey) was an American sculptor, best known for his public monuments. Life and career De Lue studied at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and la ...

, located at

The Ellipse The Ellipse (sometimes referred to as President's Park South) is a park south of the White House fence and north of Constitution Avenue and the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Ellipse is also the name of the circumference street within t ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

File:Bremerhaven.1.JPG,

Auswandererdenkmal The ''Auswandererdenkmal'' (German for ''Emigrant Memorial'') is a statue in the port of Bremerhaven, Germany, that depicts an emigrant family. Cast in bronze, it shows an emigrant family with the father looking forward toward the New World and t ...

(Emigrant Memorial) by

Frank Varga Frank Varga (born Ferenc Csaba Varga; June 18, 1943April 14, 2018) was a Hungarian-American sculptor. He was the only child of the artist Ferenc Varga and his wife Anna Pázman Varga. Biography Varga was born in Budapest, Hungary. In 1951, w ...

, located in

Bremerhaven Bremerhaven (, , Low German: ''Bremerhoben'') is a city at the seaport of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms a semi-enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the Riv ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

File:Alice in Wonderland Central Park NYC.JPG, Alice in Wonderland sculpture by

, located in

File:Giant spider strikes again!.jpg, Maman by Bourgeois File:Athens Square Park Qns td (2019-08-21) 25 - Sophocles.jpg, Sophocles in Athens Square Park File:Street statue of a garment worker on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan in the heart of New York City's Garment District LCCN2011632581.tif, Garment Worker by Judith Weller File:Soldier's Monument at Greenwood Cemetery.jpg, Soldier's Monument at

References

External links

* * * * {{Coord, 40.77853, -73.89815, format=dms, region:US-NY_type:landmark, display=title 1932 establishments in New York City American companies established in 1932 Astoria, Queens Companies based in Queens, New York Foundries in the United States Industrial buildings and structures in New York (state) Manufacturing companies based in New York City