Lenz Process

Patient, painstaking Alfred David Lenz dropped dead in the streets of Havana in 1926, of heart failure brought on by malaria and long breathing of acid fumes. "I want to leave my bones where they won't be worried about," he said. "They won't even make good billiard balls." Last week the National Sculpture Society held an important meeting in New York. Entrusted to it for the free use of all sculptors were all the secret methods and formulae by which Alfred Lenz revived a lost art of bronze casting and earned the title 20 years ago of "the American Cellini."

"Waxie" Lenz--he got his nickname from his childhood passion for modeling in beeswax--was born in Wisconsin in 1872 of German immigrant parents. He was apprenticed to a watchmaker at 15, became a jewelry engraver shortly after, went to New York, then to Paris to study, returned, worked for years as a commercial artist and calendar designer. All this time he continued his passion for minuscule modeling. He liked dainty things. He modeled tiny little figures (generally with the aid of a reading glass) and studied chemistry and physics to try to discover again how the jewelers of the Renaissance were able to cast figures with such wealth of detail.

In 1916 Alfred David Lenz created a sensation among metallurgists. He showed roses, bits of cabbage leaves, delicate orchids, the spiny heads of Queen Anne's lace, in which every tiny vein was preserved in solid bronze, cast from the objects themselves. Later he exhibited a series of statuets, most of them not over 8 in. high including their bases, which were cast not in one but in four or five metals at the same time.

His brother Hugh has described Sculptor Lenz as a man who hated capitalism, bullfights and time clocks; liked butter, sleeping outdoors, violets and Ella Wheeler Wilcox. Particularly since the War, the ideals of modern art are diametrically opposed to the little nymphs of Alfred Lenz with their fluttering draperies. All artists respect the knowledge and dexterity that went into their manufacture, look forward to exciting developments that general knowledge of the Lenz process will bring.

Basis of the Lenz Process is the ancient art of tire perdue (a refinement of the secret process of Benvenuto Cellini). A figure is modeled in wax, which is in turn enclosed in a mold. Heat melts the wax out, and metal is poured into the aperture. Available for the first time last week were many of Alfred Lenz's secret refinements:

1) For making his molds, he used a composition of plaster of Paris and special earths, making a far more porous mold than generally used, thus allowing metallic gases to escape, preventing minute bubbles in the metal.

2) After the wax is melted from the mold, the latter must be cleaned out with hot mercury (another Lenz secret) leaving the interior razor sharp.

3 ) Molds for casting are placed in a metallic boxlike vise called a flask, to keep it in shape as the metal is poured in. To overcome the problem of the metals shrinking in cooling, Sculptor Lenz invented a flexible flask made of an elastic composition which contracts with the metal. 4

) To his flexible flask. Sculptor Lenz added a principle long used in dentistry, never before in sculpture. A vacuum pump is attached to the mold. Instead of pouring the metal in, it is sucked strongly into the finest grooves. At the same time air pressure causes mold and flask to contract strongly.

5) Casting several metals in one mold was a matter of memorizing the exact melting points of the various special alloys he employed. There was no welding. To cast a girl with a golden arm and a silver dress, for example, the arm would be cast first. When cool the hot silver alloy would be sucked into the same mold. Heat of the silver would fuse the arm to the body.

6) In flower casting the mold preparation is brushed on the flower coat by delicate coat, the mold toasted and the flower ash cleaned out with hot mercury as usual.

Unavailable for another two weeks are the exact formulas for Alfred Lenzls alloys, his special modeling wax, the compositions for his molds and the famed Flexible Flask. On his death these, with a number of diagrams and explanatory sketches, were left to his brother and two sisters who in turn deeded the process (which might have brought then a great deal of money from commercial foundries) to the American Artists Professional League. The A. A. P. L. in turn handed the Lenz Process to the Sculpture Society as an organization better equipped to make use of it. All the final formulae are being checked, printed in a booklet to be published by the Sculpture Society next fortnight.

The Lenz Process need not be limited to very tiny statuets. It may be used for all small sculpture up to 200 lb. in null Often it is more inexpensive than founding processes now in use.

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