Vignettes

Volante Moon
November 02, 2018

When Bay Area couple and private clients of Jacqueline Becker Fine Arts last visited Paris, they found themselves falling in love — with a sculpture. While taking in the Louvre’s many cultural treasures, the pair became enthralled with The Winged Victory of Samothrace, the famed Hellenistic marble statue representing Nike, the Greek goddess of victory. Back home in northern California, the couple hoped to somehow bring the triumphant spirit of Winged Victory to their new coastal residence in Half Moon Bay. With the help of Becker, the couple’s search led them to Richard Erdman; in his form Volante Moon, they found a contemporary channeling of the ancient artwork.

Richard Erdman marble sculpture progress

In close collaboration with Bay Area landscape architecture firm Lutsko Associates, Richard determined the ideal site for the newly commissioned Volante Moon: poised between land and sea, as if about to take flight over the Pacific Ocean. Not only is the marble sculpture positioned in perfect harmony with the distant horizon, but it can be seen upon entering the home, offering a thrilling focal point of the structure’s sight lines.

Hewn at the Carrara studios from a five-ton block of deep grey Bardiglio marble, Volante Moon reached its home this fall: in September, Richard traveled to Half Moon Bay, where, with the expertise of Ian Mullen and his Ship/Art International crew, the marble sculpture was dramatically airlifted onto its granite pedestal via crane. As Ms. Becker commented for a feature in the International Furnishings & Design Association magazine, “Soon, stone will fly!” And it certainly did: to see Volante Moon sail aloft in the air was a testimony to Richard’s lifelong determination to imbue the ancient material with dynamic buoyancy.

 

“This sculpture,” says Richard, “is a humble tribute to the supreme qualities of Italian marble and its unparalleled ability to be malleable in the artist’s hand.”