Life

Emile Norman grew up with a club foot

Club foot

A club foot, or congenital talipes equinovarus , is a congenital deformity involving one foot or both. The affected foot appears rotated internally at the ankle. TEV is classified into 2 groups: Postural TEV or Structural TEV....

 on a San Gabriel Valley walnut farm. From an early age he exhibited artistic talent, carving his first sculpture from a riverside rock at age 11, – ruining his father's chisels, but also gaining his respect.

From 1946, Norman lived and worked at his studio-home in Big Sur

Big Sur

Big Sur is a sparsely populated region of the Central Coast of California where the Santa Lucia Mountains rise abruptly from the Pacific Ocean. The name "Big Sur" is derived from the original Spanish-language "el sur grande", meaning "the big south", or from "el país grande del sur", "the big...

 on Pfeiffer Ridge with his partner Brooks Clement, until Clement's death in 1973 from cancer.

In 2008, actors Michael Tucker

Michael Tucker (actor)

Michael Tucker is an American actor and author, most widely known for his role in L.A. Law, a portrayal for which he received Emmy nominations three years in a row....

 and Jill Eikenberry

Jill Eikenberry

Jill Eikenberry is an American film, stage, and television actress. She is best known for her role as lawyer Ann Kelsey in L.A. Law...

 met Norman, purchased land from him in Big Sur, became his neighbors and his close friends – eventually taking five years to produce a PBS

Public Broadcasting Service

The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....

 documentary, Emile Norman: By His Own Design. Having moved in with Norman in 2003, long-time friends Jeff Mallory and C. Kevin Smith had discovered movie film shot by Norman's partner Brooks Clement on a hand-cranked 16 mm Bolex

Bolex

Bolex is a Swiss company that manufactures motion picture cameras and lenses, the most notable products of which are in the 16 mm and Super 16 mm formats. The Bolex company was initially founded by Jacques Bogopolsky in 1927. Bolex is derived from his name. He had previously designed cameras for...

, footage that was eventually incorporated in the documentary.

Norman died September 24, 2009 in Monterey, California

Monterey, California

The City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...

 at age 91, survived by three sisters, Marilyn Bogart, Mabel Malone and Edna Rhodes.

Note: According to the documentary, Emile Norman was born Emil Nomann.

Career

Norman began his professional career fashioning window displays for Bullocks Wilshire

Bullocks Wilshire

Bullocks Wilshire, located at 3050 Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles, California, is a 230,000-square foot Art Deco building.-Design:...

 in Los Angeles and later Bergdorf Goodman

Bergdorf Goodman

Bergdorf Goodman is a luxury goods department store based on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. The company was founded in 1899 by Herman Bergdorf and was later owned and managed by Edwin Goodman, and later his son Andrew Goodman....

, Bonwit Teller

Bonwit Teller

Bonwit Teller was a department store in New York City founded by Paul Bonwit in 1895 at Sixth Avenue and 18th Street. In 1897 Edmund D. Teller was admitted to the partnership and the store moved to 23rd Street, East of Sixth Avenue...

, and other New York department stores. He later designed plastic headdresses for the chorus girls in the 1946 Fred Astaire film Blue Skies

Blue Skies (film)

Blue Skies is a 1946 Hollywood musical Technicolor comedy film, released by Paramount Pictures and starring Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Joan Caulfield, Olga San Juan and Billy De Wolfe, with music, lyrics and story by Irving Berlin; most of the songs were recycled from earlier works. The film was...

."

In New York, Norman's work was featured in Vogue magazine – and he first displayed an affinity for working in plastic, having discovered the material, especially exposy resins, during a trip to Europe in the late 1940s. Norman was featured in a November 22, 1944 New York Times article, Plastics Shown in Decorative Role, covering the opening of his exhibit at the Pendleton Gallery.

Norman's lifetime body of work includes sculpture, mosaic, jewelry, and other forms – and most prominently the 40- by-46-foot mosaic window for the Masonic Center in San Francisco along with an assemblage of exterior stone sculptures:
Norman often used an innovative technique bringing together his own admixture of epoxy-resin, crushed glass, plastic, or wood – creating an effect not dissimilar to cloisonne

Cloisonné

Cloisonné is an ancient technique for decorating metalwork objects, in recent centuries using vitreous enamel, and in older periods also inlays of cut gemstones, glass, and other materials. The resulting objects can also be called cloisonné...

 or stained glass

Stained glass

The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...

. The effect is especially unusual when Norman crafted the layered effect over a wax form which, when later melted away, left behind a three-dimensional sculpture.

External links

• PBS Documentary: Emile Norman: By His Own Design