TOTEMS AND DEITIES: Herb Albert & Anita Huffington on Exhibition at ACA Galleries, Now thru 4/16

ACA Galleries has announced an exhibition of two sculptors who found early success in music and dance.

Since Herb Alpert first introduced the Tijuana Brass with its Signature Sound, it has grown into a global phenomenon. Anita Huffington was originally trained as a dancer under the tutelage of Merce Cunningham and Martha Graham.

This exhibition pairs Alpert's abstract sculptures, which can be compared to the freedom and spontaneity of his improvisational work as a jazz musician, and Huffington's figurative work inspired by the fluidity and form of dancers' bodies.

Huffington's sculptures incorporate both classic and modern influences and return to the most elemental of artistic subjects, the human body. She is the recipient of the Jimmy Ernst Award in Art from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1997) as well as the Governor's Arts Award for an individual artist (2005). Her work has been exhibited throughout the country and is in numerous public collections including Crystal Bridges Museum, AK; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; the Morris Museum of Art, GA among others.

A 287 page monograph on Huffington with an introduction by Townsend Wolfe (Ruder Finn Press, 2007) is available.

Celebrating the New Year, three of Alpert's tall black bronze totems, Spirit Totems, will be on exhibit in Dante Park today, January 25 - April 16, 2014.

Alpert began working on the Spirit Totem series in 2000, originally inspired by the totem poles of the indigenous tribes of the Pacific Northwest. His paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in museums in the U.S. including the Tennessee State Museum and Pasadena Museum of California Art. His work is also in the Permanent Collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Los Angeles and the Tennessee State Museum, Nashville." In 2013, Herb Alpert received the National Medal of Arts Award presented at the White House by President Barack Obama.

ACA Galleries opened its doors over 80 years ago establishing many giants of American art who were guided by social passion and modern spirit. A short segment documenting ACA's history is currently being produced for PBS.

For more information, visit: herbalpertpresents.com, anitahuffington.com or acagalleries.com.

Totems on display at ACA Galleries photographs by Gerry Wersh.