PHILIP AND KELVIN LAVERNE
Evan Lobel
Philip LaVerne
ALCHEMY: THE ART OF PHILIP AND KELVIN LAVERNE by Evan Lobel with Kelvin LaVerne, published by Pointed Leaf Press, will be released in October 2024. At almost 300 pages, it is the complete reference book on their work. Philip (born in 1907) and Kelvin (born in 1937) were father and son artists who worked together to create exceptional functional and fine art. Each accomplished and talented in his own right, Philip and Kelvin's collaboration created a dynamic synergy that resulted in unique and spectacular artworks. Philip attended the Arts Student League in New York. Kelvin went City College in New York City and switched to Parsons for his last 2 years of college education. Like his father, he also attended the Arts Student League. There they both mentored under well known sculptors. After finishing school in the late 1950’s, Kelvin joined his father and they began making art pieces in patinated and engraved bronze and pewter, opening a showroom on East 57th Street in NYC to great acclaim. Their first series, the Historical Civilization Series, focused on past civilizations, such as China, Greece, Italy, and Egypt but also touched on mythology, religion, and the arts. Both intellectuals, they were inspired by all of the arts as well as Fauvist, Impressionist and Renaissance painters. The LaVernes experimented with chemical reactions and buried their works in special soil which would interact with the metals and give them an aged patina. It took six years for them to perfect this effect. Thus their artworks don’t just touch on historical themes, they actually have the appearance of antiquity. This treatment is totally unique to their art. After the initial success of the Historical Civilizations Series, they worked on abstract designs, such as Bathers, Eternal Forest, Etruscan Round, and Fantasia. These works, though less literal, are captivating. Always wanting to experiment with new ideas, in the 1970’s they began working with molds and made cast pieces in bronze tones. These pieces, very time consuming and expensive to make, are quite rare and were made in small editions, many are one-of-a-kinds. They only made these for a few years due to their complexity and then they transitioned to hand-torched (welded) pieces. With hand-torched pieces, they moved headlong into abstract and figural sculptures, like the one-of-a-kind masterpieces “Mother and Child”, “Harmony and Grace”, “Pas Du Trois” (shown in the phot below behind Kelvin LaVerne and Evan Lobel). They created bronze sculptures which were incorporated into furniture designs such as the dining table "Symphony" and the coffee table "Wavecrest". These pieces are exceptional and rare. Throughout their collaboration the LaVernes created engraved paintings on bronze and pewter with enamels. These works, created in novel ways, are masterpieces. They continued to work together until Philip died in 1987 at which time Kelvin completed open orders and then experimented on his own mostly with cast sculptures. Those works are signed with only Kelvin’s name.
Evan Lobel interviewing Kelvin LaVerne at his studio in Soho in 2012.