A few years back I was honored to be asked to participate in an exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington, Delaware. DAM is one of those small but important museums we are lucky enough to have quite a few of in this country. It is known for two things; it has the largest collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings anywhere outside Britain. Also, Wilmington was the home of the great illustrator, Howard Pyle, and was where his school was located. He taught many of the great illustrators of the early 20th C., among them, my favorite, N.C. Wyeth.
The exhibition was called
Masterpieces in Miniature and all the invited artists were to choose a famous work of art and recreate it in the form of a box diorama. I chose
The White Company, the book being by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the cover illustration being by N.C. Wyeth.
I had never done a box diorama and, at this point, had only completed four figures, but I was game to give it a go. (Notice that I say I had only completed four figures. I will not tell you how many were, and remain,
uncompleted.)
Even though it wouldn't be seen in the exhibition space, I decided that I wanted the box itself to give one the feeling that the book was being read by a gent in his oak paneled study in a grand house with a fine cigar and vintage port close at hand. So, I made the box of oak and covered the front with red leather as I imagined a copy of the book might have had when it was first published. Where N.C. had painted the title to appear as if it were written on parchment, as was done in days of old, I decided to use parchment for that purpose.
The figures themselves began life as Verlinden 120mm figures but were repositioned and denuded of all detail:
I got started but very quickly became unhappy with the results, and so, cut the figures into pieces and then reassembled them. (Does this sound like a familiar habit??)
I used two part epoxy putty and gave them all new tunics and chain mail.
One of the characters in the novel is described as being rotund so I decided to give one of the figures a pot belly:
The piece was well received and was really lot of fun to do. And I have more planned!
Thanks for having a look.
Cheers from NYC,
Michael
