Richard MacDonald

Richard MacDonald’s impact on contemporary figurative sculpture has dominated and shaped the field: to look at the sculpture of the human form today is to look—either directly, or through reflection—at the concepts revived or innovated by Richard MacDonald.

The artist’s legacy is still being built, but what we see now is the result of thirty years of intensive commitment and creative energy. Like all artists, he goes ahead of the mainstream in his ideas and practices, and what we see is the wake of a mind that is constantly searching and forever creating.

To bring the beauty and meaning of figurative sculpture to a wider audience Richard MacDonald created his distinctive Atelier Sculpture collection. This unique grouping of smaller scaled works in bronze are both part of the broader oeuvre of Richard MacDonald’s artistic endeavors, yet they stand apart in significant ways. Since the Renaissance, five hundred years ago, we value artists for their ideas, primarily, and secondarily for the work of their hands. For this reason, the ideas that are expressed in Richard MacDonald’s Atelier pieces carry forward his important ideas about humanity—its resilience, adaptability, and capacity for great beauty.