Frederick Hart
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MASTERS GALLERY
(1943-1999)
Frederick Hart is recognized worldwide as the most prominent figurative sculptor of the last century.
Beginning his life in Atlanta, and his career in Washington, D.C., Hart was the epitome of the starving artist. He saw that he was spiritually descended by famed figurative masters such as August St. Gaudens and Daniel Chester French, but he failed to realize the fame these artists enjoyed. He toted around Dupont Circle, sculpting girlfriends, kids and buddies but not truly finding his calling. He became despondent with the lack of skill on the "modern" art scene, and more the notion that we had forgotten what it meant for something to be beautiful, timeless and everlasting.
He then discovered the Washington National Cathedral, the seventh largest cathedral in the world, and the only place he could truly surround himself with the Italian master stone carvers who would make him the master. he carried tools, fetched coffee and finally ingratiated himself into the cadre of stone carvers, whose impermeable ranks were so hard to breach. the headmaster himself, Roger Morigi, a temperamental Italian, with a penchant for the "tough-love" way of teaching, took him as an apprentice.
In 1971, Hart heard of the competition for the commission of the sculpture to adorn the west facade of the Cathedral. For the next three years he worked in his own unheated studio, "almost starving to death" as he sketched his ideas for the Cathedral's international competition. Hart remembered "It was to be a contemporary idea of Creation, a vision of an unfolding universe." Inspired by Pierre Tellhard de Chardin's writings on science and theology, hart envisioned a great allegorical work which would evoke the heroic struggle for awakening and consciousness. the selection committee was impressed with the power and became the most prominent religious sculpture of our day. "Ex Nihilo" (Out of Nothing), an eight figure, larger than life, swirling mass, which notoriously gained recognition as the subject of the lawsuit against the makers of the movie "The Devil's Advocate", which Hart won. The sculpture was thirteen years in stone carving, and finally dedicated in 1982. Hart created six major sculptures giving him a similar historical place among masters such as Bernini, Michelangelo and Rodin. Hart said, upon it's completion "my life's work is complete, my density fulfilled."
Once complete Hart looked through the art journals and literary magazines for some mention of this masterwork, and none came. Hart hoped he would find an article panning it, just to let him know that someone was watching figurative work. No one was. hart's sculpture was ignored because it was in the tradition of the old school, and therefore offered no new ideas.
