Happy Father's Day to all the men who helped to raise, teach and inspire children—men who provide(d) the best examples of self-discipline, integrity and kindness. Conceiving a child is the easiest step. So is letting someone else raise him or her. Growing a good, constructive and honest child is the hard part (and it is the part that counts).
Shown here, a Danish Modernist stoneware sculpture by Axel Thilson Locher (1879 - 1941). He designed works for the Copenhagen ceramics studio Bing & Grøndahl.
Locher was born in Copenhagen to an artistic family. His father was nautical painter Carl Ludvig Thilson Locher (1851-1915)—and Carl's father was a nautical painter before him. Both Carl and Axel lived and worked in Skagen, Denmark's northernmost town. (Fans of the Danish series, Seaside Hotel, frequently will hear Skagen mentioned, as "the big town" six miles north of the hotel.) At 12 years of age, Locher began to study sculpting and, at 15, he was accepted into the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts. For several years after that, Locher worked for Bing & Grøndahl, including to help create the company's exhibition at the Paris Exposition Universelle in 1900—which catapulted Danish ceramics onto the world stage. At Bing & Grøndahl, Locher worked alongside ceramicist Jo Hahn Locher whom he married. She often collaborated with him, sometimes painting his sculpture. Axel Locher's most prominent commission was to create eight monumental sculptures to adorn the spire of the Danish Parliament Building, Christiansborg Palace. Each of the eight copper sculptures, over 10 feet tall apiece, depict Danish male and female workers, many holding the tools of their trades.
The stoneware figure, shown here, was sculpted by Axel Locher in the Twenties or Thirties. It is very much in keeping with Locher's elegant and dignified representations of laborers. Click on the photo above to learn more about this handsome sculpture.
Though our Greenwich Village store is now permanently closed, LEO Design is still alive and well! Please visit our on-line store where we continue to sell Handsome Gifts (www.LEOdesignNYC.com).
To arrange a visit our Pittsburgh showroom (by private appointment only), please call 917-446-4248.