Art: Out of the Ashes

As a portrait sculptor, Jo Davidson had no peer in the U.S., and his bounce was as remarkable as his skill. He set himself no less a task than to sculpt “a plastic history of my time,” and the hundreds of notables who sat for him ranged from Joseph Conrad to Frank Sinatra, from Gandhi to Mussolini. A little more than a year ago, at 68, bush-bearded Jo Davidson journeyed to Israel and found inspiration for some of his best busts. The new nation, he said, “confirmed my belief that life is eternal. It was like a phoenix rising out of the ashes.”

Last week the fruits of Davidson’s enthusiasm went on view in Manhattan. Standouts were his bust of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, looking like a resolute sailor in a storm, and a bronze head of Israel’s President Chaim Weizmann. Shortly after the creation of that small but eloquent monument to the eternity of life, both Weizmann and Davidson himself died.