In Rare Form: Western New York Sculpture

Trained in the Beaux-Arts tradition in Paris and Boston, Charles Cary Rumsey worked in stone and bronze and secured several public commissions. He was developing an Art Deco approach before his untimely death in an automobile accident. In addition to showing bronze and stone sculpture by the gallery’s eponymous artist, the inaugural exhibition in the Charles Cary Rumsey Gallery surved the breadth of the collection and illustrated its diversity of artists and approach to their media.  It included Native American sculptors who worked with natural materials such as deer antler, Iroquois alabaster, and stoneware; contemporary artists working with steel or found objects, and sculptors who used ceramics for abstract or figurative works.