Following
studies
at
San
Jose
State
College
and
the
San
Francisco
Art
Institute
in
the
early
1960s,
Graham
began
to
sculpt
female
figures,
often
grouped
inside
architectural
settings
and
rendered
with
clinical
accuracy.
In
doing
so,
the
artist
turned
his
back
on
the
prevailing
critical
interest
in
abstraction
and
established
a
strong
reputation
for
his
unwavering
dedication
to
naturalism.
While
he
has
experimented
with
fragmentation
and
scale
over
the
years,
and
has
occasionally
sculpted
male
nudes,
the
idealized
female
body
has
been
his
primary
subject.
Graham
began
working
in
bronze
early
in
his
career
when
he
settled
in
Los
Angeles
in
1971.
His
work
has
been
the
subject
of
over
eighty
solo
exhibitions
and
two
retrospective
exhibitions
in
the
United
States,
Europe,
Japan
and
Mexico.
The
Cathedral
commission
marked
the
third
time
that
he
undertook
the
sculpture
of
a
gateway
in
bronze.
The
first
project
in
1978
was
Dance
Door,
which
can
be
seen
in
the
Los
Angeles
Music
Center
Plaza.
This
freestanding
bronze
door
frame,
with
its
door
in
a
permanently
open
and
inviting
position,
celebrates
the
human
body
and
its
infinite
potential
for
variation
in
gesture,
pose
and
movement.
Graham's
next
project
for
an
entryway
was
the
Olympic
Gateway,
commissioned
by
the
Los
Angeles
Olympic
Organizing
Committee
for
the
1984
games
and
permanently
installed
in
front
of
the
Los
Angeles
Memorial
Coliseum.
Although
not
literally
a
door,
the
Olympic
Gateway,
with
its
nude
male
and
female
torsos,
serves
as
a
portal
to
a
world
of
physical
perfection,
soaring
ambition
and
human
achievement
on
a
monumental
scale.
As
Graham
increasingly
became
involved
in
massive
public
commissions,
such
as
memorials
for
Duke
Ellington,
Charlie
"Bird"
Parker,
Joe
Louis
and
Washington
D.C.'s
Franklin
Delano
Roosevelt,
he
explored
new
methods
to
overcome
the
challenges
of
enlarging
small-scale
models
while
maintaining
the
desired
level
of
detail
and
surface
variation.
By
the
1980s,
he
began
using
laser
technology
to
scan
his
models,
recording
an
infinite
number
of
points
in
three
dimensions.
Computer
software
enlarges
Graham's
images
with
a
remarkable
degree
of
accuracy.
He
then
transfers
the
computer
files
to
a
robotics
milling
tool
that
carves
through
layers
of
clay
to
execute
the
full-scale
model.
From
this
model,
molds
are
taken
to
make
waxes
for
casting
the
bronze.
The
making
of
the
Cathedral's
Bronze
Doors
incorporated
this
new
technology
into
traditional
bronze
making.
It
gave
Graham
the
means
to
unite
the
bronze
entryway,
with
its
complex
iconography
of
symbolic
panels
in
relief,
with
the
three-dimensional
architectural
figure
of
Our
Lady
of
the
Angels.
Graham
believes
the
Cathedral's
doors
are
"not
about
my
authorship,
but
about
something
that
has
to
somehow
relate
to
the
continuum
of
religion,
of
spirituality."
He
considers
the
doors
"insist
to
be
touched"
by
people
and
hopes
that
within
a
few
months
the
symbols
will
"go
to
gold"
as
the
patina
is
removed
by
the
hands
of
visitors
touching
them.
Other
notable
works
by
Graham
can
be
seen
at
museums
around
the
country,
such
as
Heather
(1979)
at
the
Contemporary
Museum
in
Hawaii,
Stephanie
Fragment
(1982)
at
Seavest
Collection
of
Contemporary
American
Realism,
Fountain
Figure
at
the
Museum
of
Fine
Arts
in
Texas,
Source
Figure
(1990)
at
the
Kemper
Museum
of
Contemporary
Art
in
Missouri,
and
at
the
Natural
Gallery
of
Art
in
Washington,
D.C.
Learn
more
about
the
BRONZE
DOORS.
