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Meet Your Neighbor
Esther Wertheimer, Sculptor Extraordinaire
by Arlene Rodman
"I become my dancers. I fly with them," says
Esther Wertheimer of her airborne sculptures that
speak for her. During her thirty year career as a
sculptor, Wertheimer has indeed flown far and to
great heights. She lives to sculpt and lives
intensely when she sculpts. "Work is my middle
name," she says. "I'm a workaholic."
Wertheimer's name transcends national
borders. She has won numerous awards and has been
touted by international critics as one of the most
outstanding modern sculptors. She works with dozens
of galleries and museums, has had untold articles
published about her, lectures extensively and has
had fifty solo exhibitions on four continents.
Wertheimer is popular in Japan where she is
presently working on a sculpture installation. How
did our neighbor reach this pinnacle?
There are many good sculptors but few who
carve out a terrain all their own. Wertheimer is
that kind of singular artist. Her message is
uplifting, moving, dynamic. All of her graceful
sculptures are integrated by intense humanism.
They manifest the spirit and love of harmony, the
vibrancy of life and the quest for freedom. This
is what Wertheimer feels about herself.
A perpetual optimist, her love of flowers,
nature, dance and music is reflected in her home
on a secluded cul-de-sac in Encantada. "I'm a
single, free, liberated woman," says the petite
blonde seated in her thirty foot high vaulted
atrium, dominated by floor to ceiling bookshelves
amidst her treasured sculptures. Here, looking out
at her pool and cascading waterfall in subtropical
greenery, the artist says she is inspired. Soft,
classical music she likes to work by drifts
throughout the contemporary home. Monochromatic
rose pastel tones provide a backdrop to her art.
The mood is at once energizing and serene.
A sculpture, "The Seven Dancers," soars on
the coffee table in lyrical beauty. Wertheimer
describes the figures, 'A family forming a circle
exuding excitement and happiness as they dance and
hold each other." She always tries to bring rhythm
to her sculptures. The artist has worked for two
years on a nine foot enlargement of this piece,
cast in Italy, for the opening next month of the
Okaloosa Walton Community College Performing Arts
Center in Florida.
From a bowl of water she lifts a miniature
wax model with a smooth finish, her signature. It
will be cast in bronze at a foundry and enlarged
to fit a specific commission. Her largest
sculpture, which is in Toronto, is thirty feet
high, and some of her pieces have six figure price
tags.
Wertheimer works with clay and by using the
ancient lost wax casting method. Her workbench, a
solitary bridge table under high windows, holds
several small tools. She also makes gold plated
jewelry miniatures of her famous statue of Dante's
"Paolo and Francesea."
Many of her outdoor sculptures enhance parks
and public places around the globe. They have
universal appeal because they depict fathers,
mothers, children, dancers, all jubilantly
reaching for a bright future.
Born in Poland, the Canadian citizen has
lived in Montreal most of her life and in Italy
where she has studied and taught art. She
frequently returns there, to her beloved artist
colony, Pietrasanta. In her youth the artist has
studied ballet and later she became a successful
painter. She holds a masters degree in art
history. Besides English, Wertheimer is fluent in
French, Italian and Yiddish. Her two grown
children live in Canada; a son, Earl, who is in
the computer business and a daughter, Merle, a
lawyer. Their mother says she has always
"encouraged them to reach for the best in life, to
open their minds to great ideas."
Recently Wertheimer's sculptures graced
Mizner Park and two large, exquisite pieces are on
display in the main lobby of the Boca Pointe
Country Club. "How fortunate we are to have Esther
as a resident of Boca Pointe," said Kiki
Berkowitz, a club Board member.
In the airy, second floor office with
state-of-the-art equipment in her 6,000 square
foot house, where she has lived for the past six
years, Wertheimer muses about her life. A
university student helps with her voluminous
correspondence and other duties. She manages all
her own business affairs.
"People think I'm a dilettante," says the
sculptor. "They see me dressed up at night going
to parties; I travel, they envy me." Actually her
work is gruelling. She is continually organizing
exhibitions, lecturing, attending dedications,
crating and shipping collections, entertaining
visitors. Wertheimer also frequently travels
between Boca Raton and Montreal where she owns a
home.
When does this tireless woman sleep?
"Sometimes I work through the night," she says
matter-of-factly. Yet the artist still finds time
to play a game of tennis in the Boca Pointe
Country Club and to dance the night away, her
great passion, with a good dance partner. One of
her favorite artists is Rodin, whose work is now
on display at the Norton Museum in West Palm
Beach.
Her gaze meanders as she talks reflectively.
Often her thoughts seem to leap like her
sculptures when she sweeps a visitor along the
path of her travels: Greece, Hawaii, China,
Singapore, Japan, Italy. The phone rings
incessantly. In her spacious kitchen Wertheimer
serves a delicious home-baked apple filled with
raisins, dates and citrus fruit. The Grand Dame of
Boca Raton Sculpture likes to cook.
Glory and acclaim have not jaded her. She is
sensitive, soft-spoken and warm, with a wistful
expression that belies her fierce determination to
excel and, occasionally, to move mountains. She
says her climb to fame was largely due to her
positive approach. "Chutzpa", she calls it.
Not faint of heart, Wertheimer once took a
trip around the world to contact important art
galleries. "This is what I do," she told them
exuberantly showing her portfolio. "I would like
to have an exhibition. I'm great and you'll make
money. What are you going to do for me?"
They all wanted her. But each time, she chose
a gallery that would do the most to introduce her.
Her buoyancy and determination, expressed in her
sculptures, were the best calling card. And it
worked.
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