With its proximity to the cultural hub of New York City and its quieter suburban and rural landscapes, Connecticut was fertile ground for artists and writers in the period of Modernist movements between 1913 and 1979. Many of these cultural figures are well known through biographical and critical studies. Creative Places seeks to show how place played a significant role in creative work, and how in turn the artists and writers influenced communities in Connecticut.
Dudley Vaill Talcott
Sculpture
1899 – 1986
Modernist sculptor with hillside home and studio in Farmington from 1935 to his death.
- Biography/Description of Work
Hartford native Talcott studied briefly at the Yale University School of Fine Arts in 1919. The following year he went to Paris with an older brother, who was studying architecture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. Dudley himself only attended sketch classes at the Academie de la Grand Chamiere, preferring to roam the galleries at the Louvre and study sculptures. Back in New York in 1925, he spent his summers sailing the coast of Norway and eastern Greenland. He created two illustrated books and a group of small wood, stone and bronze sculptures about these experiences; they were exhibited at MoMA and the Whitney Museum in New York. Commissions eventually came from this exposure, including six large bas-relief slabs for the entrance to the General Foods building at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 from Edward Durell Stone and Philip Goodwin. Talcott’s work was included in Farmington’s 1940 tercentenary exhibition. The artist’s work evolved from Modernist in the 1920s and 1930s, with muscular geometric lines, to abstract as in his 1973 outdoor piece ‘Kopernik’ in Philadelphia commemorating the 500th anniversary of the birth of the Polish astronomer Nicholas Copernicus.
- Sources view
- UConn artists database, Falk99 and Connart files.
- Associated Resource(s)
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