currently on display at the Herb Alpert Music Center at LA City College.
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Twelve ‘spirit totems’ created by music legend Herb Alpert displayed at National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson Hole.
By BILLY ARNOLD, Jackson Hole News & Guide
JACKSON, Wyo. (AP) — It seems like every once in a while you run into someone who can do anything. When that person seems to do it with ease, it’s another thing entirely.
“I never tried to make a hit record,” said Herb Alpert, famous trumpeter and band leader.
Still, Alpert released nine No. 1 albums on the Billboard 200. He has also sold 72 million records and picked up nine Grammys during his six-plus-decade career.
But he would probably balk at even being in relation to his awards. Sitting in front of a view of the Gros Ventre Range at the National Wildlife Museum of Art, he came across as humble, relaxed and genuine. He wasn’t there to talk about a career that saw him lead his band, Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, to commercial success and fame in the ’50s and ’60s. He also wasn’t interested in talking about starting, running and selling A&M Records.
Alpert was there to talk about his art. He isn’t into the awards (“I don’t want to sound double humble, but I’m not into that,” he said.) or anything in that vein.
He’s just into doing “his thing,” which at this point in his life is a little bit of music and a little bit of visual art, including 6- to 12-or-so-foot (2- to 4-meter) bronze sculptures that he calls “spirit totems.”
Those pieces are on display on the sculpture trail at the museum.
Originally published www.usnews.com
The mixed-media art show will feature sculptures, paintings, a concert, and even a souvenir for St. Louis.
Each morning, Herb Alpert wakes with three choices: He can sculpt, paint, or create music. In other words, the 83-year-old artist “oozes art,” as curator Chip Tom puts it.
This weekend, the multi-talented artist’s work will be showcased at The Grandel (3610 Grandel Square). “Herb Alpert: A Visual Melody” opens tonight at 6 p.m. and will be open to the public tomorrow from 11 a.m.–8 p.m. and Sunday from 6:30–7 p.m.
The exhibit will include six sculptures—many inspired by indigenous sculptural forms from the Pacific Northwest—and 15 gestural abstraction paintings. The paintings move like Alpert’s music, says Tom, who selected the pieces. Spectators can experience the correlation between the mediums firsthand during a concert on Sunday with Alpert and his wife, acclaimed singer Lani Hall.
When Alpert leaves St. Louis, a piece of him will stay: an 8-foot bronze trumpet player sculpture that’s a sort of self-portrait of the Grammy-winning jazz artist. The statue originally welcomed guests at the Heather James Fine Art in Palm Desert, California, where Tom serves as curator. When Ken and Nancy Kranzberg visited the gallery, they thought the sculpture would be a great addition to St. Louis.
The sculpture will remain on permanent display at The Grandel, paying homage to the jazz players who frequent The Dark Room.
Originally published www.stlmag.com
Herb Alpert stands in the midst of a series of totems he sculpted, some of which can be seen at a new exhibit at Heather James Fine Art gallery in Palm Desert. (Philip Scholz Ritterman)
Acclaimed jazz trumpeter Herb Alpert is inspired by sound, motion and shape, all of which play a role in a series of large-scale totems on display through May 21 in Palm Desert.
“Herb Alpert: A Visual Melody,” the new show at Heather James Fine Art, includes bronze sculptures averaging 17 feet tall — free-flowing gestures filled with unexpected curves and twists, much like Alpert’s music. They’re inspired by indigenous people’s totems that Alpert first encountered in Vancouver about 20 years ago.
“I started riffing on the idea and began making what I would call improv jazz poles,” Alpert said by phone from his Malibu home.
He became interested in contemporary art while touring the world with his band, the Tijuana Brass, in the 1960s. He said he visited a museum in every port.
In 1970 Alpert started painting and soon added sculpting to his repertoire. He found that the same urges and instincts that drove him to make music applied to other forms of art.
“I’m a right-brain guy,” said Alpert, who also has abstract mixed-media paintings in the Palm Desert show. “I paint, I sculpt, I play trumpet and I have a good time doing all three.”
Art has been vital to Alpert’s well-being and sense of self since he first picked up a trumpet in elementary school and found that as an introvert the instrument “was talking for me,” he said. That’s why he runs the Herb Alpert Foundation, which funds groups focusing on youth arts education.
“If kids start painting or sculpting or dancing, and if they hang onto it for a while, they get to experience their own uniqueness,” Alpert said. “With luck, maybe they can then experience and appreciate the uniqueness of others.”
Originally published
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-ca-cm-herb-alpert-20180221-htmlstory.html
The quest that began in 1972 led the Annenbergs to
a pole from Henry Hunt, an iconic figure in cultural preservation, a legendary carver among the First Nations people of Canada, and a Royal British Columbia Museum chief carver.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARK DAVIDSON
Astute collectors, the late Walter and Leonore Annenberg graced their Rancho Mirage estate with an abundance of museum-caliber impressionist and modern art, antiquities, serving ware … and one totem pole.
“They wanted a ‘pole of distinction’ for their golf course,” says Anne Rowe, director of collections and exhibitions at Sunnylands Center & Gardens. “They researched carefully and consulted experts.”
Excerpt; full-length article originally published in Palm Springs Life:
https://www.palmspringslife.com/herb-alpert-sunnylands/
An earthly delight awaits to be discovered at Wynn Palace and Wynn Macau
If your idea of a day in Macau involves Macau’s extravagant hotels or a tour of the Portugese colonial architecture, there’s more to the city than its grandeur and colonial past.
Enter the “Wynn – Garden of Earthly Delights” art exhibition, a new arts and cultural event to add to your itinerary. Taking place on June 6 to October 6 at both Wynn Palace and Wynn Macau, from 10am to 10pm, the daily exhibition displays some of the world’s most renowned artwork by acclaimed artists for the first time in Macau.
From paintings, installations to digital art pieces, here are eight artworks to look out for at the art exhibition:
Photo: Courtesy of Wynn Palace
The twisting bronze totems are one of the most significant works by Herb Alpert—a jazz musician, abstract artist and recipient of the 2013 National Medal of Arts Awards.
Drawing interest with their freedom of form, the lyrical sculptures inspire both visual and aural pleasures when displayed along with a soundscape featuring Herb Alpert’s “Puttin’ on the Ritz” for which Alpert won a Grammy award.
Excerpt; full-length article originally published at this link
By Hong Kong Tatler
Music great Herb Alpert stands with a selection of models from his sculpture studio. “What people don’t understand about me is I’m not a Sunday painter. Making art is central to my life.” – PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY SUNNYLANDS
Carving totem poles out of sky-high cedar trees is a tradition for the Hunt family, members of the Kwakiutl tribe of British Columbia, Canada. From one generation to the next, through a mastery of woodcarving, the family has preserved a vital component of its Native American culture.
Originally published PalmSpringsLife.com
RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif.—Carving totem poles out of sky-high cedar trees is a tradition for the Hunt family, members of the Kwakiutl tribe of British Columbia, Canada. From one generation to the next, through a mastery of woodcarving, the family has preserved a vital component of its Native American culture.
The Raven sits atop a Hawk-Man Sun. Model totem by Henry Hunt circa 1970For Herb Alpert, the musical-industry legend, totem poles carved by the Hunts and others were a source of inspiration. As an artist who paints and sculpts, Alpert decided to “go vertical” and create tall works of his own after seeing the totem poles of Canada’s indigenous peoples in Vancouver.
Sunnylands Center & Gardens is showcasing the work of Alpert and the Hunts in its newest exhibition, Reach for the Sky: Tradition + Inspiration. The show blends pieces of art by three generations of the Hunt family—brightly-colored totem poles, ceremonial masks, and wall plaques—with Alpert’s contemporary paintings and vertical, abstract bronze sculptures.
“At the heart of this exhibition, the time-honored tradition of artistic inspiration that flows from one artist to another, from one culture to another, from one country to another, is recognized,” said Anne Rowe, Sunnylands director of collections and exhibitions. Fifty-two pieces of art are included in the show.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Ken Chavez 760.202.2266
[email protected]
Wynn invites you to take an artistic journey through “Wynn – Garden of Earthly Delights,” a brand-new art exhibition running from June to October 2019 at Wynn Macau and Wynn Palace. This exhibition is held in support of “Art Macao,” a mega international arts and cultural event under the patronage of the Secretariat for Social Affairs and Culture of the Macao SAR Government, organized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau and the Macao Government Tourism Office and co-organized by the Education and Youth Affairs Bureau and the Higher Education Bureau.
“Wynn – Garden of Earthly Delights” draws inspiration from the stunning titular Renaissance-era masterpiece by Hieronymus Bosch.
The exhibition features an extraordinary selection of modern and contemporary art by the world’s most celebrated artists: Refik Anadol, Jennifer Steinkamp, Edoardo Tresoldi and more. Presented for the first time in Macau, their works of art display their innovation, creativity, and rich cultural diversity, expressed in various media, including installations and digital art pieces.
Read – Herb Alpert – Biography
In addition to being a world-renowned musician, Herb Alpert has spent more than half his life as a respected abstract expressionist painter and sculptor. Always personal and expressive, Alpert’s sculptures draw interest with their freedom of form. His first totems were inspired by indigenous sculptural forms from the Pacific Northwest, but his Spirit Totems series, with their massive form, became more gestural. These large, improvisational totems include many animal and bird-like forms and reinterpret the traditional totem in an abstract fashion. Walking among these giants is awe-inspiring. Twelve will be displayed outdoors on the Museum’s Sculpture Trail, along with a soundscape featuring Herb Alpert’s music.
Read – Herb Alpert – Biography
Read – Herb Alpert – Q&A on his Sculpture
Read – Herb Alpert is Looking for ‘The Feel’ – article by Billy Arnold, Jackson Hole News & Guide
Sunnylands exhibition unites the artwork of Herb Alpert and renowned wood carvers from Canada
An upcoming exhibition at Sunnylands, the former winter estate of Ambassadors Walter and Leonore Annenberg near Palm Springs, Calif., will showcase the painting and sculpture of musician Herb Alpert with the works of a renowned indigenous family of master wood carvers from Canada.
The exhibition features carvings from three generations of the Hunt family, the late patriarch Henry Hunt, his son Stanley (Stan) C. Hunt, and grandson Jason Henry Hunt. Members of the Kwakiutl people of Vancouver Island, the Hunts are known throughout Canada for their wood carvings and creation of totem poles. Henry Hunt was commissioned to create a 30-foot-tall totem pole for the Sunnylands golf course in 1976.
Many years ago, while visiting Canada, Alpert was inspired by the soaring Northwest Coast totem poles he saw, and he began to migrate his own sculpture skyward.
Reach for the Sky: Tradition + Inspiration, the Sunnylands exhibition, recognizes the ethereal bridge connecting these four artists.
Herb Alpert, with Lani Hall Alpert at Sunnylands, June 2019. Photo Credit: Sunnylands
Where: Sunnylands Center & Gardens
37977 Bob Hope Drive
Rancho Mirage, CA 92270
When: Wednesday through Sunday, 8:30 am – 4 pm
September 11, 2019 – June 7, 2020
Admission: Free
