Nature Sculptor

Sculptor Richard O'Hanlon is a tall, easygoing San Franciscan of 46 who knows how to turn a neat artistic trick.

He uses two of nature's opposites--weather-worn rocks and feathery birds--as the means and end of his pleasantly lifelike modern sculpture. In Manhattan last week, 16 of Sculptor O'Hanlon's rock birds were on display for his first one-man show in the East.

O'Hanlon's subjects range from a dipping, dabbing Ouzel to a mournful Solemn Heron and a whole series of popeyed, studious-looking little owls. His materials are chunks of volcanic rock found in California's hills. He chisels a bosomy pouter pigeon from pitted grey pumice, uses polished quartzite for the silken feathers of a nesting woodcock, letting the shape of the stone suggest his forms. He chisels a fierce eagle, coldly eying the world, with a few simple curves; in his owls, a rough triangle of stone becomes a beak, a sharp shelf of rock becomes a wing jutting from a rounded body. Says O'Hanlon: "It's not that I'm crazy about birds particularly--I'm interested in all nature. I've just chosen the bird as a symbol. I'm really concerned with form, and birds offer wonderful plastic possibilities." Brought up in a remote part of the Sierra Madre foothills, O'Hanlon could hardly help being interested in nature.

As a child, he found playmates among the skunks, rabbits, birds and snakes near his house. Later he traveled to Los Angeles' famed La Brea tar pits to help the paleontologists dig up prehistoric fossils.

"I used to do that the way other kids played baseball," says O'Hanlon. He drew people, animals and birds in oils and watercolors, made prints and clay models.

In 1933, he turned to sculpture and he has been at it ever since.

Now an assistant professor of sculpture at the University of California, O'Hanlon has a solid reputation in the West. He sells his work for up to $2,000, won first prize at the 1950 San Francisco Art Association annual. West Coast critics sing his praises, and now Manhattan's have given him a nod. His gentle little birds may not be great art, but they have the kind of rare, warm originality the average gallerygoer admires and wants to put on his mantelpiece.

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