Donald De Lue (1897-1988)
Icarus
inscribed, dated, numbered and inscribed with foundry mark 'De Lue / SC 1934 © 1987 11/12 TX' (on the base)
gilded bronze
30 in. (76.2 cm.) high, on a 32 1/2 in. high marble base
Modeled in 1934; Cast in 1987.
Footnotes:
Provenance
Childs Gallery, Boston, cast under the direction of the artist, by 1988.
Fusco & Four, Boston, acquired from the above, 1997.
Private collection, acquired from the above.
Sale, Sotheby's, New York, June 22, 2007, lot 260.
Childs Gallery, Boston, acquired at the above sale.
Private collection, Newport Beach, California, acquired from the above.
By descent to the present owner from the above, daughter of the above, 2021.

Exhibited
New York, Allied Artists of America, Thirty-third Annual Exhibition, October 27-November 24, 1946, n.p., no. 98, another example illustrated.

Literature
T. Craven, Uncommon Clay (Sculpteurs Americains), film, New York, circa 1951-1952, 16:14 mn/sec, another example illustrated.
J.F. Morris, ed., 'Donald De Lue,' The American Sculptors Series, Athens, Georgia, 1955, pp. 24-25, another example illustrated.
B.G. Proske, Brookgreen Gardens Sculpture, Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina, 1968, pp. 378-379, another example illustrated.
W. Rawls, ed., A Century of American Sculpture: Treasures from Brookgreen Gardens, New York, 1981, p. 88, another example illustrated.
D.R. Howlett, The Sculpture of Donald De Lue: Gods, Prophets and Heroes, Boston, 1990, pp. xii, xix, 18, 19, 25, 26, 46, 49, 53, 60, 62, 80, 94, dust jacket illustration.
Sculpture Review, 2nd Quarter, 1991, vol. 40. no. 2, pp. 14-15, another example illustrated.

The present work is number 11 from an edition of 12 cast by the Tallix Foundry in Beacon, New York.

An example of this model in patinated plaster with metallic patination from the 1945 casting is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., 1989.29.

Donald De Lue was awarded a medal of honor at the 1946 Thirty-third Annual Exhibition Allied Artists of America for Icarus.

The story of Icarus is an unfortunate legend in Greek mythology. Icarus's father, Daedalus, was an inventor who was the mastermind behind King Minos's labyrinth in Crete. According to some accounts, once Theseus escaped successfully from Daedalus's concoction, King Minos ordered the creator and his son to be thrown into prison. Determined to escape, Daedalus forged two sets of wings out of feathers and beeswax. He urged his son to not fly too close to the sun as the heat would destroy the wings. Icarus ignored his father, soared up to the sun's rays and the wings fell apart. He plummeted into the sea where he tragically drowned.

Icarus is often regarded as Donald De Lue's best work. It's hard to pinpoint exactly when the sculptor began and ultimately finalized the model. De Lue personally believed he began to conceive of the work in 1934, after his marriage to Martha Naomi (née Cross) (1907-1982), and may have continued reworking the piece until the mid-1940s.

Icarus masterfully captures its namesake's sheer terror of plunging down as his makeshift wings come undone. The figure's compressed raised hands and feet enhance the drama and a cloud at the base further emphasizes this dramatic descent. Icarus boasts De Lue's distinctive musculature style as well as his trademark figuration on the face.
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