John Waddell

Mother and Child

Mother and Child was cast in bronze in a Mexican foundry in 1960 in the Maillol tradition. Aristide Maillol was a post-impressionist sculptor, referred to as a “classic primitivist” because he admired the simplified strength of early Greek sculpture. He believed a statue should be structurally balanced like a piece of architecture, with solid forms and clearly defined volumes.

This piece is modeled from Waddell’s wife and one of his sons. It shows a young boy held in his mother’s embrace, turning away toward the independence he will have as he gets older.

John Waddell was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1921. He studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and taught at Arizona State University from 1957 to 1964. A prolific artist, at age 43 he became a full-time sculptor. His work has been acquired and displayed nationwide, including at the Flushing Meadows Tennis Center in New York City, Herberger Theater Center, Phoenix Art Museum, and Mondavi Vineyards in Napa Valley, California.