Albert Paley: Sculpture, Drawings, Graphics & Decorative Arts, exh. cat., Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts, Tallahassee, 2001, pp. 33 and 56 for similar examples
Catalogue Essay
Trained as a goldsmith, Albert Paley first made headway in the New York design scene for his jewelry designs in the 1960s. In 1974, after moving to Rochester, New York and experimenting in the field of blacksmithing, Paley began to work steadily on metal sculpture and designing decorative objects, ranging from tables to candle holders, as well as monumental architectural commissions. Paley’s work takes a cue from the styles of the Gothic, Baroque and Art Nouveau movements, but it is Paley’s unique manipulation of forged and fabricated iron and steel to create organic and sinuous forms, as if to suggest the metals are still pliable and moving, that has made Paley a major figure in the contemporary revival of American metalsmithing. Paley is the first metal sculptor to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects, the Institute’s highest award given to a non-architect.