Stanley Rosen: Alligators & Objects

We first exhibited Stanley Rosen’s work in the autumn of 2017, following his one-man exhibition in early 2017, organized by Jamie Franklin at the Bennington Museum. His museum show revealed a fully developed sculptor, working in hand-formed ceramics. Many of his shapes evoke ancient architectural sites. Stanley’s mastery of his medium was not altogether surprising. At the time of his Bennington show, he was just shy of 90 years old. He helped develop the Bennington College ceramics department for thirty years, between 1960-91. During that time, he had largely forsworn exhibiting to focus on teaching. He was a rare thing in art- a fully realized, under known, master practitioner.  His work drew much attention and MADD acquired six sculptures for their collection. Since 2017, Rosen has shown with Peter Blum, Thomas Erben Gallery, and had a special installation of his drawings at the 2018 NADA fair in Miami organized by SHFAP.

One especially quixotic body of work by Rosen is a group of sculptures from the mid 70s featuring images of alligators. In response to this object, the sculptor states:

 I don’t like alligators.

Alligators are single minded killers.

I was trying to connect with primordial visions.

When living in the outskirts of Florence on sabbatical the edges of the property were held by masonry walls and had small lizards sunning. In order to get into the village I’d have to pass by these lizards at eye level. It was unpleasant passing them.  

Modeling is not my forte.  So, skin and clay, the skinness of clay doesn’t work for me.  So I was searching for some other way to use the ceramic surfaces.  

What happened was I casually observed a coconut chip and it was there with the outer shell that the alligator surface merged.  The two surfaces fit to the way I build ceramic surfaces.

Later when visiting the Natural Museum of History I saw in the displays the primordial forms I really wanted.  I had models and photographs of alligators and not other primordial forms.  The substitution of the alligator left something not gratified.  It’s a bad substitute.

Three of Rosen’s sculptures were donated to the Metropolitan Museum of Art by collector Robert Ellison. His work is included in the collections of the Alfred Ceramic Art Museum, The Bennington Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art and the Museum of Arts and Design, NYC. 

As John Yau wrote about our first 2017 exhibition of Stanley Rosen’s work: “Rosen’s ceramic sculptures are a revelation: they are like a country that many of us never knew was there until now.”