The Melissa Morgan Sculpture Garden is open to the public from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, for self-guided tours. The Bookstore and Information Center is open most Wednesdays through Saturdays. If you are interested in a guided tour, please contact the gallery directly:

760-341-1056 or [email protected]

Curt Brill chanced upon sculpture as a means of expression while taking a pottery class at Cornell University. After receiving a B.S. in graphic and product design from the university, he embarked on a career as a sculptor and gained a national reputation for large-scale raku pottery. Since then, Brill has experimented with such varied media as plaster, metal, foam, and telephone wire. In 1980, however, he poured his first bronze and discovered a fascination with the medium that he has since made his own.

Brill's female bronzes are caught in relaxed poses, which the artist rapidly sketches as his models naturally sit, stand, or lie down.

He then creates a small-scale model in clay or wax, making sure to retain the immediacy of the original sketches. While he casts bronzes from these original models, Brill is best known for the larger-than-life-size figures that result from scanning the originals to Styrofoam and, from there, working a proportionally accurate model out plaster, clay, or wax. The final results are sculptures stripped of heroism, narrative, and romanticism. This realism, due in part to the artist's experience as a drug rehabilitation counselor and a professional in state-run mental institutions, strives to find the beauty and grace in human imperfections, not in spite of them.

View Works by Curt Brill

Over the course of his seven-decade career, Bill Barrett is considered a leader in the second generation of American metal sculptors. He has developed a personal philosophy that is as concerned with the harmony and balance of seemingly disparate qualities. Barrett enigmatically transforms bronze, steel, and aluminum into graceful and rhapsodic sculptures that often challenge the law of gravity in free-flowing movement.

Barrett is well known for sculptures that range in size between monumental-scale to small tabletop. His large-scale works are found in such notable sculpture parks as the Grounds for Sculpture in New Jersey, Pyramid Hill in Ohio, and Runnymede in California.

Barrett is represented in corporate collections such as Neiman-Marcus, Dallas, TX and Hitachi Corporation in Japan, as well as in the museum collections of the Museum of Fine Art in Santa Fe, NM; the Knoxville Museum of Art, Knoxville, TN; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA; the Utsukushi-ga-Hara Open Air Museum in Tokyo and more.

Others works are installed on dozens of corporate, municipal, and university campuses, most recently at Oklahoma State University, the University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Iowa State University, among others.

“I feel that the artist’s responsibility is to project his own happiness and good will–but not at the expense of the rawness, the incompleteness, the questioning that must be at the core of every true artist’s work. This kind of self-disclosure–the very nakedness of which is universally discomfiting to many–is part of what’s fun about art." - Bill Barrett

Works by Bill Barrett

Using mostly simple hand tools as well as some welding equipment, Peter Busby molds steel rods into impossibly large animals, giving viewers an opportunity to appreciate them from every angle. He has a months-long process he stands by, from pencil-tracing the formations on drywall to manipulating materials to represent a specific shift of an animal’s head or body. Busby does, however, try to decondition himself from the mechanical pattern-making that can happen when working in a similar style. “It’s actually quite difficult to randomize the form,” he says. In other words, it is easy to get caught up in a routine of making everything symmetrical. “I try not to do that. I prefer the end result with the imperfections.”

Born in Mineola, NY in 1957, Busby attended SUNY Oswego from 78-79, during which he installed a large-scale, permanent sculpture outside the school's administration building. Busby received his first public art commission from the Ryslings School in Nyborg, Denmark, in '86. Since then, Busby has consistently received commissions for large-scale, figurative sculptures and has installed such works throughout the US and Mexico. Among his major public commissions are the Dancing Cranes at the Bronx Zoo in NYC, the Texas Long Horns in Dallas, Texas, and the two life-size elephants in Elephant Greeting at the entrance to the Dallas Zoo, TX.

View Works by Peter Busby

Joseph McDonnell, an American sculptor of renowned acclaim, embarked on his artistic journey with a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Fine Arts from the prestigious University of Notre Dame. Under the mentorship of the distinguished sculptor Ivan Mestrovic, McDonnell honed his craft, laying the foundation for a career marked by innovation and artistic evolution. His academic pursuits extended to the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence, Italy, and the Harvard School of Design, broadening his artistic horizons.

Over his illustrious career, McDonnell has left an indelible mark with over 150 major commissions for esteemed institutions, corporations, and individuals. His portfolio boasts collaborations with prominent entities such as CBS, IBM, General Electric, Reader's Digest, Dulles Airport, the Milwaukee Public Museum, and the New Jersey State Government. Notably, McDonnell's sculptures grace public spaces, corporate environments, and private collections, showcasing his versatility and widespread appeal.

"Joseph McDonnell is clearly a master of what might be called late modern sculpture cubist/constructivist complexity and an expressionistic sense of drama. Their surface richness suggests a painter’s sensibility—but there is much more to them than their stylistic subtlety. To take a cue from the title of one of his most monumental works, 'The Second Gates of Paradise', they are about faith in the possibility of perfection in an imperfect and unperfectable world. They are about the second coming of paradise after the apocalypse… The paradox of McDonnell’s sculptures is that they seem to be falling apart and coming together simultaneously.” - Donald Kuspit

David Yarrow: Cindy Crawford

On View in the Gallery Now

Words by David: It has taken many years to capture a photograph strong enough to be worthy of the name Breaking Bad. Some have come close and we do regularly work with people who dance on the edge of permitted behaviour, but we held out looking for the perfect picture. Breaking Bad was an epic, game changing series and anything that borrows the name must be visually appropriate as well as eye grabbing and powerful. 

I had long sensed that the concept of filming with Cindy Crawford in a Californian Biker Bar had potential, especially if the bikers had a palpable sense of menace and trouble. I knew that she could more than hold her own in playing bad *** and therefore there could be unity across the ensemble, irrespective of the apparent rogue member. I need a collective, not six or seven individuals. 

The interior of Joshua Tree Saloon in the town of the same name, offered a great canvas on which to paint this story and as always there was a jeweller’s eye attention to detail. I required as much information in one frame as possible and this demanded that I use width rather than height.

When I saw the result, I sensed I had my Breaking Bad shot. There is nothing I would change in it and I think Bryan Cranston et al would feel rather at home in the saloon. There seems little appetite for cultural refinement or mundane conversation. 

Cindy excels at this kind of work and it is always a privilege to work with her. She absolutely smashed the role I asked her to play that day and now we have the long sought after picture.

Words by David: Hitchcock’s acclaimed 1959 espionage thriller - North by Northwest - has long being a prompt for me; especially the sequence in which the fleeing Cary Grant is chased down by the crop spraying plane. It was cinema ahead of its time and I admit to watching that sequence more times than would be considered normal. 

During COVID, we played on this storyline near my home in Devon, but in 2023 I drew up a more ambitious story that would be played out in the isolated desert community of Amboy, California.We had scouted the area intensely and knew our angles, our light and most of all the landowners.

The premise was to style the set as if we were indeed in the late 1950s and we recognised that we had a strong backdrop, as Roy’s Cafe is one of the treasure trove authentic landmarks of Route 66. From Roy’s looking east, the Mother Road stretches straight to the horizon in a way that plays to our preconceptions of Americana road trips. We then brought in a 1953 Ferrari 250 MM Vignale Spyder as the lead car and dressed the background with a Ford pick-up from the late 1940s.

But this was mere window dressing and my sense was that in order to transcend, this story required some heavyweight components. Flatteringly, Cindy Crawford agreed to be the main protagonist and I knew she would give Cary Grant a run for his money. Cindy is the best of the best and it is always a huge honour to work with her. Ascribe her a role and a look and she will nail it every time.But we also needed a plane. Amboy has a tiny runway strip and towards the end of the day, when the traffic is lighter, a good pilot can flirt with the tarmac of Route 66. I needed a pilot whom I could trust and I found him in Greg Caldwell, who slightly reminded me of the heroic crop spraying pilot from the movie Independence Day. We had worked with him before and there didn’t seem much to trouble Greg - not even his plane’s aerial proximity to a $10m Ferrari or, more importantly, one of the world’s most identifiable and revered women. 

There is a film noir feel to the image and I think the relatively flat light helps the rather menacing mood. But the credit lies with both Greg and Cindy who did exactly what I asked them to do.I guess we may have broken some new ground here as well as a few rules. The BTS video of this shot is worth seeing, it’s one of our better ones.

Words by David: I think visiting a potential film location for the first time is akin to a first date or a first experience at an acclaimed restaurant.It is all so unfamiliar and there is no guide as to where to start. 

The sensory overload can be intimidating and it takes time to distill and be oneself. Most second dates are better than the first and those who like a restaurant on their first visit will tend to enjoy it even more on the second and so it goes on. If this wasn’t the case, the brain is not the organ we give it credit for being. We are all incremental learners and we enjoy and leverage familiarity. 

The first time I visited this railway track in the hot Californian desert, I knew it had visual potential, especially if I shot late in the afternoon and directly against the light, but I needed a month or so to let the cocktail of what I could do marinate in my own mind. My predilection is to avoid the static or the mundane and planes, trains and cars in a still can look frozen. 

A plane defies gravity so that helps in a single image, but I knew the car and the train could not join it. I don’t envy Formula 1 photographers; it’s such a difficult sport to take stills of. My visual leaning was to have a sense of movement elsewhere and that’s where the idea of dust being kicked up from railway workers offered a solution. The light would be my partner. 

Once the premise is there, it is about scalpel sharp precision in the detail. Let’s not have any car - let’s have a vintage 1953 Ferrari and let’s not have any girl holding the image together, let’s have Cindy Crawford - perhaps America’s most loved and celebrated model. The styling in this shot was excellent and I thank Nicole Allowitz for being so good at her craft. This photograph is as much a testament to her as it is to me. The railway workers are so on point, as, of course, is Cindy. She is a given.

It is possible that some of my work over the last 10 years - particularly with wildlife - has been imitated and filmmakers have every right to do so. I celebrate a good picture like everyone else and there are some very able cameramen out there. But I don’t think this photograph is going to be imitated in a hurry and this gives me a little smile.

View Works by David Yarrow

Friday, January 3: MMFA Art Walk

El Paseo Drive shows off a new side at night, as the sidewalks glow under twinkling lights. Visit our gallery, open until 7pm, to view works by Carole Feuerman, Anthony James, and David Yarrow; and take a self-guided tour of our half-acre sculpture garden to view monumental artworks under the stars. 

El Paseo Art Walk takes place the first Friday of every month, through April. 

Gallery: 73660 El Paseo Drive

Sculpture Garden: 73785 El Paseo Drive (on the corner of San Luis Rey)

The MMFA Bookstore at the Sculpture Garden is open most Wednesdays thru Saturdays

Gallery
73660 El Paseo Drive
Palm Desert, CA 92260
Mon-Thu 10a-5p, Fri-Sat 10a-6p 

Sculpture Garden
73785 El Paseo Drive
Palm Desert, CA 92260
Open dawn til dusk, 7 days/week