Few neighborhoods in NYC have been changing as quickly as the Hunters Point and Dutch Kills neighborhoods near Queensboro Plaza in LIC, where a Glass House Gang of supertall residential and office buildings have been sprouting like weeds after a rainy spring. I recently wandered around, gawking at the new and making notes of the old. One of the survivors is Roman Bronze Works at 25-20 43rd Avenue at Hunter Street.
The company has a lengthy pedigree: it was established in 1897 by Riccardo Bertelli, and was a subcontractor to Louis Comfort Tiffany’s glassworks studios, which operated from a brick building on 43rd Avenue in Corona for much of the 20th Century.
The foundry’s mold makers, casters, chasers and finishers, and patinaters cast sculptures from plaster and terra cotta models provided by sculptors. They also scaled down monumental and other finished works for editions of collectors’ bronzes, allowing works by Daniel Chester French, Henry Augustus Lukeman and Augustus Saint-Gaudens to ornament a private library or drawing room.
From 1898, Frederic Remington worked exclusively with Roman Bronze Works, as did Charles M. Russell. Remington bronzes were being cast by Roman Bronze Works as late as the 1980s. wikipedia
A Century of American Sculpture: The Roman Bronze Works Factory [amazon]
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting of copper and another metal, usually tin. It has been produced for thousands of years.
Check out the ForgottenBook, take a look at the gift shop, and as always, “comment…as you see fit.”
7/9/18