Michael Parkes

Michael Parkes had his first one-man show at Steltman Galleries back in 1977.
Steltman Galleries made one-man exhibitions of Michael Parkes at Basel Art in Switzerland, Art Chicago, Art Fair NY, Frankfurt Bookfair, Amsterdam Art Fair, Tefaf Art and Antiques Fair Maastricht and numerous exhibitions in
their galleries in Amsterdam and New York from 1977 onwards.
The Limited edition bronze sculptures
released by Steltman Galleries.

The technique which Michael Parkes uses to make bronzes is called 'cire perdue': ('lost wax' in French'). After some sketches on what the bronze should look like, Michael Parkes creates a model of hard wax by hand. He chooses hard wax instead of soft wax ( which would make the procedure more fast ) for the original forms because the fine details can be done only in hard wax.

When this model is finished, a silicone paste is sprayed on. This siliconeform is called the contra-mould. This silicone mould will be reused for making each of the wax models that have to be melted for each bronze. For each bronze they make a second wax model in the silicone mould by pouring hot soft wax in the silicone mould that is supported by a layer of gypsum packed around. After the wax cools and hardens, the contra-mould of gypsum is cut open and a soft wax model of the sculpture is left. Around this second wax model a special cement mixture is poured. When the cement has hardened the whole form is heated so the soft wax model melts, leaving a hard cement mould. In this hard mould the bronze is poured in. When the bronze cools and becomes hard, the cement mould is carved off leaving a bronze sculpture. Special chiseling and polishing finishes the bronze and finally different patines are applied to obtain a certain color of the bronze. The sculptures of Michael Parkes have a very dark brown patina called 'patino classico'. This very labor and time intensive ( can take up to one month to finish one sculpture ) and therefore a very costly procedure, especially when the editions are as small as 12.

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