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"Beautiful................impressive sculpture."
Dr. Peter Fusco, Curator of Sculpture
   J. Paul Getty Museum

"As the heir to the proprietary sculptural formulas of Auguste Rodin and Antonin Mercié, Snowden's masterful modeling, profound creative vision, and ground-breaking bronze techniques have established her reputation at the forefront of contemporary figurative sculpture."
Marie Busco, Ph.D. , Curator and Author, "Rodin and His Contemporaries: The Iris and B.Gerald Cantor Collection" with Philippe de Montebello,  Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

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about the artist

International art critic, Remo Nevi describes M.L. Snowden as a “Great figurative contemporary master whose profound and powerfully realized portfolio places the artist among the world’s most respected representational sculptors at work today.” In 1992 Snowden won the world’s most prestigious sculpture prize, The International Rodin Competition in Tokyo, Japan, hosted in cooperation with the Embassies of Belgium, Finland, France, Israel, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, The United States and thirty other countries.

M.L. Snowden is the sole living inheritor of select 19th century marble carving, finishing, casting and bronze patination techniques from the Paris studios of Auguste Rodin and Antonin Mercié. M..L. Snowden sculpted alongside her father for seventeen years as an apprentice and as a professional in Snowden Studios. In 1990, M.L.  Snowden inherited a collection of 38 of the original sculpting tools from the Rodin Studios. Rodin’s tools were bequeathed to M.L. Snowden’s Father by the Swiss sculptor, Robert Georges Eberhard, who was Chairman of the Yale School of Sculpture for almost fifty years and was a professional in Rodin’s studios in the latter part of the 19th century. Eberhard was a mentor to the sculptor’s father, George H. Snowden, N.A. ( 1901-1990). Who Was Who In American Art.  G.H. Snowden was a sculpture educator at Yale University for many years and his extensive list of commissioned sculptures now constitute national historic landmarks. The Smithsonian Institution held a retrospective of Snowden sculpture, SCULPTURE IN THE FEDERAL TRIANGLE.

Over the last decade, M.L. Snowden has pursued sculpture as an expression of titanic geological phenomena and the impact of mankind on his environment. In 1998 M.L. Snowden was awarded the massive multi million dollar Carano Gordon Atlanta Commission to create the sculptor’s vision for the largest cohesive body of bronze extant in the latter half of the 20th century. The commission to date comprises 100 works ranging to four tons apiece with an edition to 800 works of completed sculpture.  In this collection,  notable explorations into extrusion, inclusion, advanced gravity pour techniques, innovative chasing protocols, recombinant jeweler and bronze techniques, Snowden’s restructuring of proprietary historic  wax and patina formulations and other ground breaking techniques for the art of bronze have been advanced. In Snowden’s GEOLOGICAL COLLECTION, the fine art of bronze is shaped, redefined and celebrated. An ongoing 16 City national tour of M.L.SNOWDEN: THE LEGACY OF RODIN has been  made possible by Advanstar International Art Group, Masterpiece Publishing Inc. and other sponsors.

In the year 2000, Snowden was commissioned to create the GREAT ANGELS OF THE MAIN ALTAR for the new $200 million Los Angeles Cathedral from a field of 8,000 international portfolios. In addition, Snowden is the sculptor of the ANGEL FRIEZE for the Cathedral’s Visitor’s Center, the first representation of a group of Angels for a permanent public setting in the history of the City of Los Angeles. In 1989, Snowden was named the inaugural winner of the Alex Ettl Grant for”Lifetime Achievement in American Sculpture” presented by the National Sculpture Society in New York City. In addition to creating the 14 foot high Glendale Police Memorial for the new $56 million civic plaza in the City of Glendale, Snowden’s lifetime works have been collected by a worldwide investment syndicate to advance the  formation of a museum solely dedicated to the perpetual exhibition of Snowden’s ouevre and heritage. Most recently,  M.L. Snowden was awarded the inaugural Presidential Order of Merit “In Recognition of Significant Contributions to the Betterment of Humanity Through Art,” presented by the Fine Art Foundation with the sculptor’s work recently added to the Presidential art collection at the White House.  The sculptor maintains studios in Long Beach, Paris and Austria.

Harvard University’s Michael Miller, National Marketing Director emeritus of Butterfields/ Ebay writes, “These are historic works that uncannily unite expressionism’s great inner explosions and outward cataclysms with Europe’s golden age. M.L. Snowden’s art is a glorious fusion - the summary of our age superceded by the vitality of a moment.”

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biography

M.L. Snowden, the ultimate protégé of Auguste Rodin, has spent her life surrounded by sculpture.  Her earliest memories and every waking moment of her life include sculpture.  From the age of four, she played in her father’s sculpture studio watching him with the unwavering attention of a child enthralled and enchanted.  At the age of seven she began working with clay along side her father.

As she grew, she learned Rodin’s transcendental sculpting techniques from her father, George Holburn Snowden, who had in turn been a favored student of Robert George Eberhard, a protégé of the great French sculptors Auguste Rodin, Antonin Mercié and Victor Peters.  Each of the generations -- the French masters, Swiss-born Eberhard, and American-born George Snowden -- has contributed to the evolution of a unique heritage of sculpting that finds its contemporary expression through the spectacular works of M.L. Snowden.

Part of that heritage comes through the original sculpting tools of Auguste Rodin that have been passed from mentor to protégé for three generations.  The tools, some of which she uses in sculpting her own works, are a symbol for Snowden -- a symbol of the awe-inspiring foundation upon which her work is based.  They provide a physical connection with the artistic inheritance that has been passed down to her and represent the utter devotion to sculpture of the artists who are part of Rodin’s legacy.

Snowden’s own devotion to sculpture has been acknowledged through the awards that have been bestowed upon her and her work.  Early in her career, she was awarded post-graduate study grants to the Vatican Collections in Rome, the Uffizi in Florence, and the Louvre in Paris.  At the age of 36, she received the inaugural Alex Ettl Grant from the National Sculpture Society for “Lifetime Achievement in American Sculpture”.  In 1992, she was awarded the world’s most prestigious sculpture prize -- the International Rodin Competition Special Grand Prize -- for her sculpture “Cataclasis”; which is currently in the permanent collection of the Hakone Museum in Japan and the White House in Washington DC.  

In 2000, Snowden was commissioned from a field of 8,000 international portfolios, to be the sculptor for the Main Altar of the new 200 million dollar Los Angeles Cathedral dedicated in 2002. For this commission Snowden has created a composition of Angels which uphold the 8 ton main altar. In addition, Snowden is the sculpture of the Angel Frieze for the Cathedral’s visitor center, the first representation of a group of Angels for a permanent public setting in the history of the City of Los Angeles.

M.L. Snowden created a 14 foot high Glendale Police Memorial for the new $56 million civic plaza in the city of Glendale, CA. Most recently, M.L. Snowden was awarded the inaugural Presidential Order of merit “In Recognition of Significant Contributions to the Betterment of Humanity Through Art” which has been added to the presidential permanent art collection at the White House.

 

M.L. Snowden’s current body of work evokes a geological theme of the impact of mankind on his environment.  Snowden’s sculpture humanizes the forces in nature, which lead to the formation and evolution of our Earth. Snowden’s sculptural genius demonstrates itself in her ability to personify these forces and allow the viewer to feel and intuitively understand the phenomena that is otherwise only accessible as an abstract geological science.  In the same forms, she communicates the nobler side of man’s endeavors and issues a call to humanity, challenging us to recognize certain truths that are universal to all creation - whether it is organic or geologic in nature.

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Preserving the Legacy of Auguste Rodin

In 1992, M.L. Snowden became the fourth artist to receive the coveted Rodin Prize for sculpture.  The work, entitled Cataclasis, won kudos from artists and critics throughout the world, and was selected from a field of over 500 juried entries.  The unique fortuity behind Snowden’s receipt of the prize, however, rests in her compelling history and extraordinary legacy, for Cataclasis was sculpted with both Rodin’s technique and his original sculpting tools, passed directly down to her through generations.

Mary Louis Snowden is the daughter and protégé of master sculptor, George H. Snowden, whose numerous accomplishments throughout his 65 year career include over 100 public placements (the pediment of the U.S. Postal Service Building and the altar of the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. being among them), sculptural design for many major Hollywood films including “Ben Hur” and “The Robe”, and the design of many of the original sculptural elements for Walt Disney’s Disneyland and Epcot Center theme parks.

George H. Snowden came upon sculpture as a career quite by accident.  In the early 1920s, a Catholic priest arrived at the doorstep of Yale University sculpture professor, Robert Eberhard, with an exquisite clay sculpture of the head of Christ in his hands.  Upon seeing the sculpture, Eberhard immediately demanded that the artist be brought to Yale and interviewed for enrollment.  The young sculptor, an indigent laborer in a small rural town, was George H. Snowden.

After a grueling interview process in which the elder Snowden accomplished the impossible task of producing three years’ worth of meritorious work in a single summer, the Yale faculty admitted him to the university and hired him as a sculpture assistant to Professor Eberhard.

The Swiss-born Eberhard had been the protégé, friend and sculpture assistant to the great Auguste Rodin at his Villa studio at Meudon, France.  Rodin bequeathed the very tools he had used in sculpting his master works to Eberhard in recognition of his contributions and artistic potential.

When Rodin passed away in 1917, Eberhard emigrated to the United States and was quickly accepted as a sculpture professor at Yale University.  When George H. Snowden entered the fold, Eberhard adopted him as the recipient of the Rodin legacy, eventually passing down the Rodin tools to Snowden in a celebration of his achievements and masterful skill.

M.L. Snowden received the Rodin tools upon her father’s death in 1990, an event that sent her spiraling into a deep reclusion.  As the imaginative daughter of a renowned sculptor, Mary Louise had spent much of her young life in her father’s studio.  She learned to sculpt using Rodin’s transcendent technique by watching her father’s masterful hand and sculpting her own work under his guidance.

It was during her self-imposed reclusion from 1990 to 1997 that M.L. Snowden created the Rodin Prize-winning sculpture, Cataclasis.  Since 1998, she has been openly sharing the Rodin legacy with the world.  Her work, which is now available as select bronze limited edition sculptures, tours the country along with the Rodin tools.

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