Art: Westermann's Witty Sculptures

At the Whitney, a craftsman in the American grain

If artists were comic-strip heroes, Horace Clifford Westermann would be Popeye. The gimlet stare, the laconic speech, the cigar stub jutting like a bowsprit from the face, the seafaring background and fo'c'sle oaths, the muscular arm—all are there. He signs his work with an anchor; and Westermann's age, 55, is about right too. What the comparison lacks, of course, is the talent. Westermann's retrospective of 59 sculptures and 24 drawings, which runs until mid-July at the Whitney Museum in New York and then goes on...

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