Emile Norman (1918–2009)[1] was an iconoclastic[2] California artist known for mosaics, panels, jewelry and sculpture — with a meticulous attention to detail.
“
Nobody ever gives
you permission...
to become an artist.
— Emile Norman [3]
”
Life
Emile Norman grew up with a club foot on a San Gabriel Valley walnut farm.[2][4] From an early age, he exhibited artistic talent, carving his first sculpture from a riverside rock at age 11,[4] — ruining his father's chisels, but also gaining his respect.[4][5]
From 1946, Norman lived and worked at his studio-home in Big Sur on Pfeiffer Ridge with his partner Brooks Clement, until Clement's death in 1973 from cancer.[6]
In 2008, actors Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry met Norman, purchased land from him in Big Sur, became his neighbors and his close friends[4] — eventually taking five years[7] to produce a PBS documentary, Emile Norman: By His Own Design. Having moved in with Norman in 2003,[8] long-time friends Jeff Mallory and C. Kevin Smith had discovered movie film shot by Norman's partner Brooks Clement on a hand-cranked 16mm Bolex, footage that was eventually incorporated in the documentary.[9]
Norman died September 24, 2009 in Monterey, California at age 91,[10] survived by three sisters, Marilyn Bogart, Mabel Malone and Edna Rhodes.[4]
Career
Norman began his professional career fashioning window displays for Bullocks Wilshire in Los Angeles and later Bergdorf Goodman, Bonwit Teller, and other New York department stores. He later designed plastic headdresses for the chorus girls in the 1946 Fred Astaire film Blue Skies."[4]
In New York, Norman's work was featured in Vogue magazine[1] — and he first displayed an affinity for working in plastic, having discovered the material, especially exposy resins, during a trip to Europe in the late 1940s.[10] Norman was featured in a November 22, 1944 New York Times article, Plastics Shown in Decorative Role, covering the opening of his exhibit at the Pendleton Gallery.
Norman's lifetime body of work includes sculpture, mosaic, jewelry, and other forms — and most prominently the 40- by-46-foot[11] mosaic window for the Masonic Center in San Francisco along with an assemblage of exterior stone sculptures:
“ Fabricated with an endomosaic process, it incorporates thousands of bits of metal, parchment, felt, linen, silk, natural foliage, thinly sliced vegetable matter, shells and sea life, plus 180 colors of stained glass. The lower portion of the frieze is made up of actual gravels and soils of the 58 counties of California and the islands of Hawaii. The window depicts the history of the wayfarers and the seafarers that helped found California Freemasonry.[11] ”
Norman often used an innovative technique bringing together his own admixture of epoxy-resin, crushed glass, plastic, or wood — creating an effect not dissimilar to cloisonne or stained glass. The effect is especially unusual when Norman crafted the layered effect over a wax form which, when later melted away, left behind a three-dimensional sculpture.[1]
References
1. ^ a b c "Emile's Life". EmileNorman.com. http://www.emilenorman.com/bio.html.
2. ^ a b "TV review: Life of Big Sur artist Emile Norman". The San Francisco Chronicle, David Wiegand, June 20, 2008. June 20, 2008. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/20/DDPL11AJEF.DTL.
3. ^ "Indie film traces the life of an artist". The Mail Tribune of Southern Oregon, April 11, 2007, Bill Varble. http://archive.mailtribune.com/archive/2007/0411/local/stories/emile.htm.
4. ^ a b c d e f "Emile Norman dies at 91; artist created mosaic window for Masonic temple in San Francisco". The LA Times, Valerie J. Nelson, Sept 27, 2009. September 27, 2009. http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-emile-norman27-2009sep27,0,4662372.story.
5. ^ Hamlin, Jesse (8 November 2005). "It's lively and colorful, but a mural depicting history is showing its age". SFGate. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/08/DDGDCFJEET1.DTL. Retrieved 1 October 2009. "I'm an experimenter, said Norman, whose papa whupped him when he was 11 for wrecking the old man's chisels carving a granite face, but endorsed his son's talent when he saw the finished product"
6. ^ "Emile Norman: By His Own Design". PBS.org. http://www.pbs.org/emilenorman/.
7. ^ "TV documentary of Big Sur artist Emile Norman reveals a unique vision.". Monterey County Weekly, Tracey Hurkill, 12 Oct 2006. http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/archives/2006/2006-Oct-12/Article.film_feature/1/@@index.
8. ^ "The PBS Documentary". The Emile Norman Gallery, Carmel, CA. http://www.emilenorman.com/pbsdoc.html.
9. ^ "All the pieces of Emile Norman's life as artist and gay man, together on film". The San Francisco Chronicle, SFgate.com, October 14, 2006, Pam Grady. October 14, 2006. http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-10-14/entertainment/17316650_1_art-pieces-parrinello.
10. ^ a b "Pioneering California artist Emile Norman dies". SFGate, September 26, 2009, Kenneth Baker. September 26, 2009. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/09/25/MNUE19SOEG.DTL.
11. ^ a b "Life of wonder: Artist Emile Norman's work has brought him around the world and back, to 'magical' Big Sur". The Montgomery County Herald, Marc Cabrera, 25 September 2009. http://www.montereyherald.com/search/ci_9521223?IADID=Search-www.montereyherald.com-www.montereyherald.com.
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