Bud Hambleton

Bud Hambleton sculpted the human condition in its many facets, including nudes, children, and political satire, as well as monumental works of abstract expressionism.

His love of nature, shaped by his boyhood spent on his grandfather’s farm in Jamestown, New York, and his travels through the Pacific during his military service in World War II, led to stylized animal portraits. These ranged from wild horses, bison, moose, bears, and owls of North America to giraffes, elephants, and warthogs populating the African savannah.

Hambleton’s talents as a sculptor freed him to work in wood, stone, or clay, but he chose arc-welded steel as his principal medium, from which limited bronze castings were made. Despite the rigid and physically demanding mediums, his work conveys fluidity and ease of motion, action, and languor.

Hambleton trained his eye on and captured the beauty of a woman reading a book while resting in a hammock, the joyful abandon of children at play, the majesty of a great horned owl with its piercing gaze, or the grace of a loping giraffe.

The breadth of Hambleton’s work displays a yearning that reaches across generations. It speaks to the quest for beauty and youth, as well as the relentlessness of nature and old age. His art remains timeless, not just because of its steel or bronze origins, but through its universality.