John Dreyfuss: Sculptor

Dreyfuss’s bronze figures and animals are noted for their harmonious design and exquisite finishes. His training in both architecture and sculpture found a poetic fusion in the essential duality of his work, where abstracted lines blend seamlessly with the lifelike shapes and textures intrinsic to sculptural realism. His innovative use of patina and “invisible” supports (suspension wires, or pedestals that follow the flow of a figure, as if emerging from water) contribute to the illusionistic synthesis of life and sculptural artifice, where form, surface, and evocation of the natural world engage us on many levels at once.

For five years, International Arts & Artists circulated this exhibition of 19 outdoor bronze works, all mounted on steel pedestals, to museum gardens and grounds and to city plazas in South Carolina, Florida, Tennessee, and Virginia. Most are extremely large—up to 22 feet in length—and include stylized figures of animals, boats, urns, and other objects, many of which inhabit a sculpturally fluid interstice between beast and object d’art. Some of his most striking creations include his bronze renderings of baseball players—a dreamlike abstraction of long-ago Senators games at his childhood hometown of Washington, DC.