A selection from Schoenbrod's unpublished manuscripts
Artwork
Bas-Reliefs
Bas-Reliefs | 30+ Pieces
Gilbert Adam Schoenbrod was known for his masterful bas-reliefs. He started honing this craft while living in Highland Park, Illinois and continued the practice until the end of his days. His creative process later in life involved enlarging a few select of the miniature pieces (3" x 5") that he was shown in his meditations. Each piece was crafted with meticulous care by the additive process of building up a plaster of marble dust mixed with acrylic resin on plywood boards.
Bas-reliefs are an ancient art form which translates to “low-relief.” Examples of the earliest of these sculptures can be found on cave walls. A bit later, Bas-reliefs were used extensively as ornaments for ancient Egyptian and Assyrian buildings, and they can also be seen in the sculptures of ancient Greeks and Romans. A well known example is the Parthenon frieze which showcases bas-reliefs of Poseidon, Apollo, and Artemis.
These reliefs can be created by the additive (adding material to) or subtractive (carving material out of) a flat surface, creating a planar sculpture with three dimensional elements protruding from the background.
Drawings
Drawings | 300+ Pieces
The vast majority of Gilbert Adam Schoenbrod’s catalogue is in the form of his drawings. He often mixed and matched the mediums of crayon, pastel, pen, and pencil. There was also a period of time when he worked with charcoal.
Sharon Tennison, an artist herself as well as patron and dear friend of Schoenbrod from the 1970’s until his passing recalls this about Schoenbrod: “He kept his colored pencils carefully sharpened with a lot of the colored part showing, sometimes up to half an inch long it would protrude from the wooden part. Adam’s ability to make sweeping strokes with the pen were done to perfection. A perfect arch, a perfect circle, a perfect peak, all of those tiny little circles or the lines that were perfectly executed, it amazed me because I had the years of practie that he had.”
At this time, the online gallery provides only a glimpse at the abundance Schoenbrod created and primarily showcases his larger pieces. There are portfolios full of beautiful, poignant works, many of which are accompanied by text and or prose. Further, nearly every page of his manuscripts is also illustrated in a similar fashion, primarily utilizing crayon and pen.
Watercolors
Watercolors | 50+ Pieces
The vivid lights of Gilbert Adam Schoenbrod’s meditations are well captured by the watercolor medium. Most commonly he paired the water color with pen and colored pencil.
His water colors are one of the smaller collections in the catalogue by number, and they are striking to behold. This medium allows for a different, softer and yet bold, expression of the forms which Scheonbrod was guided to create during his meditations.
Metal Work
Metalwork
While at Columbia studying for his masters in education and teaching, Gilbert Adam Schoenbrod became acquainted with an master Arabian silversmith, Yussef Najjar, who opened up the world of metal working for him. In an interview given in 1972, Schoenbrod elaborates: "My dark-eyed, rotund friend from Arabia taught me the ancient crafts of the East— arts of the silversmith and goldsmith." Schoenbrod also indicates in this same interview that it was through his relationship with Najjar that he was guided to his new home, Carmel, California. "We traveled from my studio-home in Connecticut, just wandering across the land. One day we chanced upon another world of rich and deep vibrations that called me to another home."
In 1949, Schoenbrod relocated to Carmel, California with his family. In this artists haven he opened his first studio, Silver Studio, in the Court of the Golden Bough. Here he crafted his truly unique jewelry pieces, each designed for the customer in mind. Schoenbrod explains: "I sketched their (the customers) portraits and built the jewelry as part of the intrinsic self. One set, designed for the wife of the head Chaplain of the U.S. Navy, was conveyed with a motorcycle escort from the New York post office, down Fifth Avenue, and home to his lady as an anniversary gift" (Schoenbrod, 1972).
Schoenbrod cast many pieces specifically to adorn his artwork whether it be figures that were placed on his drift wood sculptures or designs that he would adhere directly to the class of his framed pieces.
During his life Schoenbrod designed jewelry for Georg Jensen, Sax Fifth Avenue, Lord and Taylor, American House and other fine jewelers of Boston and New York.
Drypoint
Etchings
Drypoint Etchings | 30+ Pieces
A method of printmaking of the intaglio family, this particular technique was likely invented by the Housebook Master, 15th century German artist. An image is traditionally carved direclty into a copper plate or into a “matrix” (eg. wax) covering that copper plate. If wax is used, the plate is then exposed to a corrosive acid post-etching; the acid does the work of etching the design into the metal plate. The etched plate is then coated thoroughly in ink, all excess ink is carefully removed, and the print made. As few as 10 or 20 impressions can be made with each engraved plate before the image is compromised.
Dry Point etching was one method Gilbert Adam Schoenbrod utilized in his early days and he was self taught. All of his plates were cut in the 1930’s while living on Huntington Island, New York. His sons remember him working upstairs, etching each plate by diamond point.
After a showing of his work in 1971, two of Gilbert Adam Schoenbrod's drypoint pieces were selected for the Smithsonian archives of a dawning art in American painting and thought: "Weary" and "Reality "(AmericanartSi.edu/artist/gilbert. schoenbrod.-4314).
Other notable artists who used this method were Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Alex Katz, Max Beckmann, Milton Avery, Hermann-Paul, Mary Cassatt, and David Brown Milne.
Driftwood Sculptures
Call
T: 831-917-2101
Contact
Driftwood Sculptures | 5+ Pieces
Schoenbrod's wooden sculptures were some of his most popular pieces while he was living; it is unknown how many are out in the world.
Spending time on Asilomar State Beach, footsteps from his artistic hermitage, was a staple of Gilbert Adam Schoenbrod's physical and spiritual routine. Drift wood, which often washes up along that stretch of the coast during storms, is charismatic and lends itself to the sculpture medium.
Pictured here are 5 pieces he left behind to the care of family.