International studio (46.1912)

Some Recent Work by

Willard Dryden Pad dock


Copyright by W. D. Paddock

WALL FOUNTAIN

BY W. D. PADDOCK

SOME RECENT WORK BY WILLARD
DRYDEN PADDOCK: AN APPRE-
I CIATION
The art of Willard Dryden Paddock is more
than the art of the sculptor, pure and simple, and
that Mr. Paddock views art in general at a wide
angle of vision is evidenced as much by the par-
ticular channels into which he is directing his
sculpture as by the fact he has produced an envia-
ble showing of paintings and portrait drawings.
It is rather with certain phases of his work in
sculpture, however, that it is intended to deal here
—with a brief study of the ideas with which he
goes to work and a discussion of the successful
fruition of these ideas in certain recent examples
of his art.
Mr. Paddock is happily possessed of the old
Greek ideals of beauty—that ugliness is a sin and
grace a virtue, and that it is perfectly possible for
discriminating people to acquire a keen apprecia-
tion for abstract beauty in the many utensils of
modern civilization which surround us today. A
letter seal need not have a handle like a tack

hammer or a can opener. Let it be modeled in
the form of an exquisitely graceful little bronze
statuette, so that it may stand on the desk as a
constant inspiration and a thing of infinite and
unwearying charm in its long intervals of disuse.
Such is the little bronze Venus letter seal, which is
one of Mr. Paddock’s most charming small pieces.
In the same vein he has imparted a personality
full of beauty and grace to candlesticks, andirons,
book supports, bottle stoppers and many other
bits of the machinery of modern civilization—
things which ordinary usage has made common-
place and common familiarity has, for the most
part, kept on the low plane of the commonplace.
Among Mr. Paddock’s happiest achievements
are several small bronzes designed to support cut
flowers in a shallow bowl of water. Two or three
flowers are exquisitely beautiful—so beautiful, in-
deed, that one is as much inclined to wonder at
the temerity of a sculptor who dares to design an
accompaniment to them as one is ready to admire
the amazing grace with which Mr. Paddock has
achieved it.
There is one very important point to be made in
this matter of beautified utensils in the event of an
attempt on the part of manufacturers to commer-
cialize the idea. This point is that unless this sort
of thing is done perfectly and by a true artist, it is
certain to be much worse from an esthetic point of
view than the purely utilitarian object of today.
In the case of Mr. Paddock’s work, which is re-
stricted by copyright and limited in each piece to


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