Lot 103: OTTO NEALS (1930 - ) Stone Song.

OTTO NEALS (1930 - )
Stone Song.

Limestone with mother-of-pearl inlay, 1998. Approximately 455x255x115 mm; 18x10x4 1/2 inches. Incised signature and date on the verso.

Neals's work in sculpture was motivated by the artist Vivian S. Key who gave him a set of stone-cutting tools. Neals's works in wood, stone and bronze are often evocations of African people and their motifs. Neals explained in the following statement: "My talent as an artist, I believe, comes directly from my ancestors. I am merely a receiver, an instrument for receiving some of those energies that permeate our entire universe, and I give thanks for having been chosen to absorb those artistic forces. I try to paint and sculpt African people, working always to portray those characteristics that are true of their beauty, their power, and their love. We are but shadows of those who have gone before us and before I enter the world of spirits, I hope by example, to touch a positive nerve in our youth."

Neal's commissioned sculptures include a bronze at the Brookyn Children's Center, 10 bronze plaques at the Harlem Walk of Fame and the bronze Peter and Willie in the Imagination Playground of Prospect Park, Brooklyn. Based on the children's book characters by the writer Ezra Jack Keats, this 1995 bronze was awarded the New York City Art Commission's award of excellence for design.