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Technology's Sentinel 2003, made from COR-TEN steel, stainless steel, and bronze, or his small-scale domestic range of tables, doors, furniture, and lighting, made from steel and bronze. While Paley's work, on whatever scale, provides decorative richness to offset the institutional blandness of much contemporary architecture, his art also often complements the historical styles of pre-existing designs. Paley's first large-scale commission, the Portal Gates, 1974, for the Smithsonian Institution's Renwick Gallery here in Washington, DC, perfectly blends with the 1874 Second Empire-style building, as does his gate for the Good Shepherd Chapel, 2007, in the neo-Gothic Washington National Cathedral.
Albert Paley was born in 1944 and today lives and works in Rochester, New York. He is the first, and remains the only, metalsmith to be awarded the Institute Honors (in 1995) from the American Institute of Architects. His work can be found in the permanent collection of over 40 major museums, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. |