Gordon B. Newell Born Blair Gordon Newell in Petaluma, Sonoma County, California on November 9, 1905, to James Blair Newell and Harriet See, this distinguished mid-century sculptor worked mainly in granite, and his subjects were mostly non-objective, abstracted or stylized. He studied art at Occidental College in Los Angeles (1924-1925) and UC Berkeley (1927-1928). Between 1929 and 1932 Newell apprenticed under Ralph Stackpole, San Francisco’s leading artist of the time, to assist with wood and stone carving on Stackpole’s monumental pair of figurative sculptures flanking the grand entrance to the City’s Stock Exchange. When this project was completed, Newell moved to Los Angeles where he taught at the Chouinard Art School and Occidental College for the remainder of the 1930s. As described by Colin Gardner in the Los Angeles Times in 1987, “This veteran California sculptor is best known for large, outdoor works that fuse figurative, architectural and totemic elements, often imbued with a sinewy elegance. He fits firmly into the modernist tradition, balancing the geometric with the organic and the representational with the purely abstract. Although this sounds like predictable, formal territory, Newell rarely sinks into cliche. His work retains a reductive starkness that counterpoints the allure of its polished, chemically- induced patinas and white-painted surfaces. His starting point is usually an arch or bird, from which he stylizes hard edges, smooth curves and enveloping masses that appear naturally rather than being imposed from without. Newell avoids the passive “object-ness” that usually dogs work of this kind.” Gordon Newell’s personal life is marked by multiple marriages, the first to Hollywood film star, writer and poet Gloria Stuart in 1930. The newlyweds settled in the Artists' Colony of Carmel-by-the-Sea. It was a seemingly idyllic life; Gloria wrote reviews, conducted interviews with visiting celebrities like Charlie Chaplin, and even ran the linotype machine for the local newspaper, The Carmelite. Newell and Stuart separated four years later. Newell secured a "quick and easy" divorce in Juarez, Mexico. Two days later he married his art student Emelia Bubeshko in Los Angeles, the newlyweds honeymooned in Morro Bay. Gordon and Emelia purchased land in Big Sur, it was here that Gordon built their home of local materials and cut a road that led up to it through the redwoods. Gordon and Emelia had two children, Gretchen and Hal. In 1966 he married Eleanor McPartland in Monterey and the couple divided their time between Carmel Highlands and Darwin, California. During the years 1965-1972 Newell taught at the Sculpture Center in Monterey. He died in Reno, Nevada on December 6, 1998, surrounded by family and close friends. Exhibitions: Penguin Bookshop (LA), 1933 Los Angeles County Fairs, 1934-1941Centaur Gallery (Selma), 1934 California - Pacific International Exposition (San Diego), 1935 Ebell Club (LA), 1935 Painters & Sculptors of LA, 1935-1938 UC Los Angeles, 1936 Carmel Art Association Palos Verdes Library, 1937 Occidental College, 1938 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1939 NY World's Fair, 1939 Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, 1975 In the Collections of:Honeyman State Park (Oregon) Occidental College, LA (relief panel) Fresno Mall (Valley Landing) Lompoc Public Library (Eagle) Planetarium (Los Angeles) Belmont High School (Los Angeles) Hollywood Post Office White House (Washington, DC)