Bird — Herbert Brooks Walker
Formed Aluminum on Green Marble, 1967
Herbert Brooks Walker II (1927–2018)
American Modernist Sculpture
1967
Formed Aluminum on Green Marble
Approximately 32 H × 44 W × 16 D in.
BIRD is a striking abstract sculpture by American artist Herbert Brooks Walker II, dated 1967. Formed from sweeping planes of aluminum and mounted on a richly veined green marble base, the work evokes a bird in flight through an economical modernist vocabulary of line, surface and movement.
Rather than describing the bird anatomically, Walker creates the sensation of flight through the curvature and intersection of the metal planes. Light travels across the aluminum surfaces as the viewer moves around the sculpture, shifting between bright reflection, shadow and sharply defined edges.
The sculpture can be mounted in two orientations. In its current presentation, the V-shaped portion is seated in the marble block; an alternative mounting places the single joined point into the base, changing the relationship of the wings and creating a more abstract arrangement of planes and arcs.
DOCUMENTATION & FAMILY HISTORY:
Maison Palm Beach's research into BIRD includes historic photographic and archival material together with direct correspondence with the artist's daughter, Brooks Walker.
A historic photograph associated with the sculpture shows an example of BIRD installed beside a lake. Accompanying handwritten material identifies Herbert Walker, Fairlee and 1967. Brooks Walker identified the setting of the photograph as the Walker family's dock at Lake Morey in Fairlee, Vermont, and identified handwriting on accompanying material as her father's.
Brooks Walker also recalled preliminary paper maquettes and believes the bird was first made at or for her grandmother Lillian Gahagan's Palm Beach bungalow and poolside. The recollection provides an intriguing Palm Beach connection to the history of the design, while Maison Palm Beach preserves the distinction between family memory and a documented commission.
Family correspondence recalls only two or possibly three examples, with other versions associated with family collections in Italy.
Additional archival material accompanying BIRD includes handwritten notes, correspondence material and an FMR / Franco Maria Ricci card bearing Walker's name. One accompanying notation appears to reference “ex Cooper Hewitt.” Maison Palm Beach is continuing to research this reference; at present, it is treated as an archival research lead rather than confirmed museum provenance.
Walker lived and worked in Fairlee, Vermont, where he and his wife Joan established the Walker Museum and where his studio formed part of the museum.
CONDITION & PRESENTATION:
The sculpture has been professionally cleaned, burnished and waxed. Its renewed surface emphasizes the changing character of the aluminum as light passes across the broad planes, while the richly veined green marble provides a contrasting visual and structural base.
Price: $18,000
Bird — Herbert Brooks Walker
