Fantastic Curtis Jere Lighthouse Wall Sculpture. Signed in the lower front right. Mid 20th century. Sculptural metal lighthouse on a shoal with dock and shore birds. 

Size: 50 1/2 x 10 1/4 x 26 1/2 in. 

C. Jeré (or Curtis Jeré, often seen without the accent) is a metalwork company known for wall sculptures and household accessories. C. Jeré works range from representational to highly abstract, and are made and marketed by the corporation Artisan House. The name Curtis Jeré is a compound nom de plume of founding artists Curtis Freiler and Jerry Fels, who combined parts of their own names to create the original C. Jeré signature. According to Modernism magazine, which interviewed Jerry Fels shortly before his death in October of 2008, the company was founded in California in 1963 by Fels and his brother-in-law Curtis (Kurt) Freiler. Freiler was the production chief and Fels was head of design, and their goal was to produce “gallery-quality art for the masses.” Prior to the establishment of Artisan House, the partners built a costume jewelry business, selling work under the names Renoir and Matisse, which employed around 300 people at one point. In the late 1960s C. Jere brass and copper sculptures were primarily distributed through Raymor, a studio in New York City. Kurt and Jerry sold Artisan House in 1972, and production eventually shifted overseas to China in 2003. Kurt Freiler died on July 22nd, 2013, at the age of 103, while he was in the process of creating a new company in the hopes of bringing back the distinctive enameling and crimping techniques that had once made their sculptures so popular.

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