Charles LeDraySculpture 1989–2002

The Arts Club of Chicago is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition, Charles LeDray, Sculpture 1989-2002, on Friday, September 20, 2002. American artist Charles LeDray (b. 1960) creates miniature sculptures in a wide variety of materials. His artworks also cover a range of psychological subject matter, from gender identification and adolescent trauma to sexuality and procreativity. With a meticulous attention to detail, LeDray produces unimaginably miniaturized handmade sculptures of fabric, wire, wood, and human bone. This is the first museum survey of this important sculptor. The press is invited to the opening tea on Friday, September 20, from 4:00—6:00 p.m. The artist will be in attendance.

This comprehensive exhibition of recent works will feature approximately 30 pieces created by LeDray since 1989 including early works such as Untitled/Broken bear, 1993, as well as his clothing-based sculpture Torn Suit, 1997-99, and other pieces drawn from private and public collections.

In his sculpture, LeDray’s attention to detail and personal subject matter elicits a strong response from the viewer. This is evident in such works as Milk and Honey, 1994-96, in which 2000 unique, hand-thrown porcelain vessels are encased in a huge multi-tiered vitrine. For clothing-based sculptures like Charles, 1995, he embroiders patches, constructs zippers, and even fabricates the miniature hangers. His oeuvre also includes human bones which he has sculpted into buttons, furniture, a shaft of wheat, and Tellurian, 2000, a complex planetary model.

Charles LeDray’s work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art. In 1993 he received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and in 1997 the Prix de Rome from the American Academy in Rome.

Claudia Gould, director of the Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia, curated the traveling exhibition. It was previously exhibited at the ICA Philadelphia (11 May–14 July) and will travel to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (25 January–6 April 2003) and the Seattle Art Museum (26 April–27 July 2003).