Bust of Frank Sinatra. Patinated bronze. Signed.This portrait bust of Frank Sinatra was created for the November 14, 1976 Scopus Awards ceremony honoring Sinatra, who gave in excess of $1 million during the course of the 1970s to The American Friends of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Sinatra was pleased with the representation created by the artist and went on to gift examples of the bronze to a handful of family and close friends, including the present lot, which Frank gifted to Nancy. Mrs. Sinatra gave the bust of Frank pride of place in her Beverly Hills home, displaying it on the Jacobean style console table in the foyer. This bust can also be seen in the March 2015 issue of Vanity Fair where it appears in Jonathan Becker’s portrait photograph of Mrs. Sinatra displayed on the 1949 Steinway & Sons grand piano that Frank and Nancy purchased for their Holmby Hills estate at 320 N. Carolwood Drive.Robert (“Bob”) Berks (1922-2011) was a renowned American sculptor who, over the course of his long and prolific career, created a number of well-known works in his recognizable style. His large scale public works include the eight-foot bronze bust of John F. Kennedy at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as well as busts of Robert F. Kennedy at the Kennedy Center and another at RFK Stadium. Also in Washington D.C. is a monumental sculpture of Albert Einstein Berks created for the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences.Born in Boston on April 26, 1922, Robert Berks’ parents were artists who restored Early American arts and crafts. While in his teens, Berks studied at the Museum School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. During World War II, he designed and built keels for wooden minesweepers at the Herreshoff Shipyards in Bristol, R.I. After the end of the war, Berks returned to painting and sculpture.During an interview with The Suffolk Times in April 2010, Berks said, “Everything designed has a visual component, and art is the best way to do everything.” Mr. Berks once related that during a portrait sitting with former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and his wife, Maria Shriver, Schwarzenegger remarked, “Bob, there’s one thing wrong with your work... you did too many Democrats.” Mr. Schwarzenegger went on to commission a bronze bust of Ronald Reagan for the Reagan Library, which was unveiled in 2002. Aside from the presently offered bust of Frank Sinatra, Berks’ oeuvre includes bronze portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Martin Luther King Jr., Bob Hope and Jane Fonda, to name just a few. Near the end of his life, Berks designed an 11-foot, 7,000-pound sculpture, dedicated in 2009 in Pittsburgh, memorializing Fred Rogers of the PBS children’s show “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.”According to the late artist’s wife, “Bob’s goal in portraiture was to create a visual image of the people of our time to carry on to future generations.”

Height 11 1/4 inches, the base 7 1/2 inches square

PROVENANCE From the Estate of Mrs. Nancy Sinatra; Given to Nancy Sinatra by Frank Sinatra Sr.


Frank Sinatra