ALEXANDER LIBERMAN
Untitled.
Polished aluminum, 1975-76. 468x270x257 mm; 18¾x10½x10 inches. Incised with the artist's initials, dated and numbered 14/15 on the base. Executed by Treitel- Gratz, New York, with the stamp on the base.Liberman (1912-1999) was a Ukrainian-American magazine editor, publisher, painter, photographer and sculptor. He was born into a Jewish family in Kyiv, and when his father took a post advising the Soviet government, the family moved to Moscow. Following difficulties in Moscow, his father secured permission from Lenin and the Politburo to take his son to London in 1921. Liberman started work in the publishing industry in Paris during the 1930s. After emigrating to New York in 1941, he began working for Condé Nast Publications, rising to the position of editorial director, which he held from 1962 to 1994.Only in the 1950s did Liberman take up painting and, later, metal sculpture. His highly recognizable sculptures are assembled from industrial objects, often painted in uniform bright colors or highly polished like the current work. His monumental sculpture The Way,1972-80, made of eighteen salvaged steel oil tanks, is a signature work of Laumeier Sculpture Park, and a major landmark of St. Louis, Missouri.