Grounded Bird

Lee Bontecou studied at the Art Students League in New York from 1952 to 1955 under William Zorach and John Hovannes. Shortly there-after she began making fantastic and often semi-abstract bird and animal sculptures of terra cotta formed over reinforced concrete. "Grounded Bird," a massive, wingless creature, stands with splayed claws, displaying an aggressiveness shared with several of the artist's pieces from this period. The composition is balanced by legs that firmly ground the large body. Gaps between the edges of the slabs near the left leg and tail recall its origins in clay and add character to the surface by allowing glimpses into dark crevices. In subsequent decades, Bontecou produced the canvas and metal wall reliefs for which she is well known, many exhibiting the menacing, aggressive character perceptible in the bird sculptures. She has also worked with vacuum-formed plastic, clay modeling, and has produced a significant body of work in printmaking.