Lot 243: Gruber, Aaronel de Roy Kinetic Sculpture, 1970, Acrylic and stainless steel

(American, 1918-2011) Aaronel studied with several outstanding professors in the instituteÕs College of Fine Arts: Samuel Rosenberg, Roy Hilton,Wilfred Readio, and Robert Lepper, who would also later inspire Andy Warhol and Philip Pearlstein. Aaronel began crafting precisely made steel and Plexiglas kinetic objects and became an innovator in the growing field of polymer and motor-driven sculpture. She again studied with Samuel Rosenberg in an experimental workshop. A social realist painter turned abstractionist, Rosenberg encouraged freedom of expression, analysis, and constructive critiques Asked in 1978 why she wanted to use this difficult medium, Aaronel said, ÒI like its transparency, the overlapping of colors forming other colors and the effect of contained light within. When the sculpture is motorized, it takes on a life of its own. It is one thing by day and another by night. Sculpture moving at slow revolutions suggests the orbits of the sun and the moon and makes objects appear to change by casting them in new attitudes.Ó*