Titled "Dinner for Two" by Jack Dowd, signed on the wine bottle. Born in New York in 1938, Sarasota-based artist Jack Dowd creates paintings andsculptures of artists, celebrities, and everyday people with a very human-like feel tothem, and his sculpture of the Butler is made from gypsum cement and was created inYEAR. Definitely a figure with whimsy to it.Jack was inspired by his father and began sketching and drawing at an early age. Hestarted sculpting in the ’70s, when he lived in Plainfield, Vermont. He began with achainsaw and blocks of wood, then started working in clay because it was more flexible:he used wire mesh to build a form, then molded the clay around it and made a model,turned that into a rubber mold, and cast bronze or gypsum figures from the mold, andhis sculptures combine avant-garde and folk art together.The artist has a private studio called Moon River in Sarasota and has had many soloexhibitions sponsored by museums and art centers across the country, including theFlorida State Museum of Fine Art, Jacksonville’s Museum of Modern Art, and theRingling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida, which drew 40,000 visitors and was thebest attended opening in the museum’s history.The Butler is cradling wine bottles in his left arm, and the figure is attached to a basewhich is 10 in. high, 18 in. deep, and 22 1/2 in. wide, and the whole sculpture stands 70in. tall. “Jack Dowd” is emblazoned on both sides of the base.