Carol Kumata (American, b. 1949) Three Brooches and Two Sculptures, USA, circa 1979

Copper, bronze, brass, fabric, straw, broomstraw
Comprised of three square brooches with conforming pin backs, a small sculpture in the form of a bundle of straw wrapped in a mixed-metal sleeve, and a box-form sculpture containing a straw bundle in a mixed-metal sleeve
Unmarked
The box-form sculpture bearing a paper label to underside: "94M"

H: 3 3/4, W: 7, D: 7 in. (box sculpture); L: 3 3/4, W: 2 7/8, D: 2 1/4 in. (bundle sculpture); L: 3 1/4, W: 3 1/4. D: 5/8 in. (brooches, ea.)

Artist Biography

Sculptor Carol Kumata was born in 1949 and received her M.F.A. in 1979 from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In 2021, she retired after a 42-year teaching career at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Art, where she shared her deep knowledge of metalworking with generations of students. Whether small or large in scale, Kumata’s personal work occupies “the ideologically suspect and undefined territory between functional craft…and fine art,” striving to preserve the integrity of the materials while illuminating the human condition. It has been featured in national exhibitions, and similar mixed-media brooches are in the permanent collection of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

Provenance

Acquired directly from the artist

Property from the Robert L. Pfannebecker Collection