Founded in 1932, Modern Art Foundry is one of the oldest foundries in the United States. Located in Astoria, Queens, since 1944, the foundry has a history in producing well-known sculptures, from José de Creeft’s Alice in Wonderland monument in Central Park to Louise Bourgeois’s “Spiders” (and just about everything else she made in bronze or aluminum from the early 1980s onward). The company’s clients have included modernists like Jacques Lipchitz and Maria Martins, as well as contemporary artists such as Wangechi Mutu, Lynda Benglis, Ali Banisadr, and Leilah Babirye.The shop was founded by John Spring, who passed the reins to his son Robert Spring; the day-to-day operations are now overseen by Jeffrey Spring, John’s grandson. The enterprise specializes in lost-wax casting for non-ferrous metals, primarily bronze. “We can do anything from 2 inches tall to 50 feet tall,” Jeffrey is fond of saying. In 2021, a year after Robert’s passing, Jeffrey established the Modern Art Foundry Foundation to preserve the company’s archives, as well as the Robert J. Spring Endowment for Sculptors, which provides grants to working sculptors.Modern Art Foundry is also the fabricator for the ARTnews Awards statues, designed by artist María Magdalena Campos-Pons, who won the inaugural Lifetime Achievement award in 2024. In recognition of her win, ARTnews commissioned Campos-Pons to create the ARTnews Awards statues, which take the form of a midnight blooming flower.Earlier this year, to learn more about Modern Art Foundry’s history, ARTnews interviewed Jeffrey Spring on-site as the production for the ARTnews Awards was near completion.This interview has been edited and condensed for concision and clarity.The Modern Art Foundry team poses on José de Creeft’s Alice in Wonderland monument, prior to its installation in Central Park. Courtesy Modern Art FoundryARTnews: Modern Art Foundry has been in operation for nearly 100 years. What’s the foundry’s history?Jeffrey Spring: We’ve had a lot of well-known artists come through our doors over 94 years. My grandfather, John Spring, started the company in 1932. It was originally named Bedford Bronze and located in Long Island City, around where Mark di Suvero’s studio is. Then, in 1944, he moved the company here, and changed the name to Modern Art Factory. The move was precipitated by eminent domain for public housing at the end of Astoria Boulevard, by the ferry. We have an old address, and somewhere we have a letter from a judge telling my grandfather he needs to move. There’s also another with my grandfather asking for a few more months because we had some projects going on. The name changes because of the move and the customers we were beginning to have at that time, like Jacques Lipchitz, who would go on to become the biggest of them. “Modern art” was a term being thrown around then, but it’s funny, because we’ve been around for so long now that we’re less modern, in some ways, than our contemporary peers. We have a foundation I started about five years ago that’s trying to preserve and protect all these documents and records of the work that we’ve done.My father, Robert Spring, started working at the foundry full-time in 1955, after he was honorably discharged from the Air Force from having served during the Korean Conflict. He always said he worked there when he was a kid as well. From ’55 to ’70, my father worked for my grandfather, and then my grandfather retired. Around that time, his older brother also decided to leave the business, so then my father became president and took over the day-to-day operations. From 1970 to around 2000, the face of the company was my father. I started working here in 1993, and over those seven years or so—I always use 2000 as kind of the marker, but it wasn’t a set date—I started taking on newer customers and learning about our older customers and the ones that would transition to me did. My father maintained working with Louise Bourgeois specifically because they had such a good working relationship so. She became our biggest customer, in terms of volume of work, by far over the years. It’s very rare that you can come in here and walk around and not see something of hers—even now, because we do repairs. Beginning in ’93, I transitioned to take over the day-to-day operations. My sister, Mary Jo, also worked here, but she just retired a year ago. So it’s all on my shoulders now.Bob Spring with a Louise Bourgeois “Spider.” Courtesy Modern Art FoundryAnd before ’93, did you work at the foundry?As a kid, yeah, typically during summer vacation and high schools breaks. The alarm clock went off when you were on school break, and I didn’t want to come but we were put in the car and told to go. When I came back to the business, having worked here in high school and college was very beneficial because I had a sense of what we did. I wasn’t fully knowledgeable yet as a professional, but having that basis allowed me to get back into it without sort stumbling too much.What kind of motivated you to come back? By the third generation, family-run companies often go out of business or are sold.It’s comical, in a way. I left [New York] to go to the University of Maine, where I played soccer. I graduated from college in December of ’86, and I did other things from ’86 to ’93. When I left the University of Maine, I went to England for two years to try to play soccer over there—I did not succeed. I was also a musician at the time. I’m still a musician now, I guess. At the time, I was playing music, so I moved back to Portland, Maine, and was in a band for about five years. The band was somewhat successful, but it was not financially successful. I got to a point in life where I needed to make a decision about having a regular paycheck. It just so happened to be at the time when I was trying to decide what was happening in my life, and my father was deciding whether to close the foundry because he was thinking of retiring. “Close” might be a strong word, but he wasn’t sure what he was going to do; he was turning 60 or 65. He wasn’t about to close it, but he was thinking, What is the future? He called me up one day and said, “Would you be interested?” And I said, “Let me think about it.” Then I came down, and we spent some time together and such, and it seemed like a good plan.How does Modern Art Foundry work with artists? What generational knowledge has been passed down?From my grandfather to my father to me, our philosophy has been to do everything we can to please the artist. It’s their work, and our job is to move their work to give them what they want, with the knowledge that we have and the services we provide. Part of that philosophy is never to direct the artist. We will offer thoughts if asked, but our goal is to give them what they want. That was one of the reasons why my father had success with Louise Bourgeois, because he never suggested to her what something should be or do, or even what the limitations are. We’re very careful about how we say what’s possible and what’s not possible, especially today, with technology changing.In the past, there were works that would be complicated to mold or assemble based on how they positioned them. But, today, mostly because of 3D technology, we can accomplish [those configurations] a little more easily. We can take on some projects that may have been harder in the past. For example, in the past, someone might make a terracotta sculpture—perhaps someone who went to an art class and made two or three figurative terracotta sculptures—and bring it to a foundry to be cast. The only way to make a mold from those is by breaking the terracotta—not every time, but there’s a chance because it’s a human process. With 3D technology now, we can scan that piece and print it in resin, and then the original model doesn’t get damaged at all. That’s now being used, not only in the simple case of the “Sunday sculptor” that I just brought up, but also in the case of an estate.The crucibles at Modern Art Foundry.Maximilíano Durón/ARTnewsDoes Modern Art Foundry focus on specific mediums?Historically, we work in all non-ferrous metals, so that’s mostly been working bronze, but we have also worked in aluminum—we did a lot of that for Louise Bourgeois. We don’t work in ferrous metals like steel and stainless steel. Since bronze is an alloy, primarily made from copper, there are different kinds of bronze, based what alloying agents, as they’re called, as used: copper, tin, zinc, lead, etc. The most common bronze today in the art world is silicon bronze, which is almost entirely just copper and silicon, with a few trace elements in it. But we traditionally use statuary bronze, which is sometimes called European bronze, and that was the traditional foundry metal for many, many years.How does each type of bronze differ, in terms of the final appearance of the work?European bronze, or traditional bronze, is a little softer, so it was more conducive to what we call hand finishing with matting tools, which were used to finish bronzes prior to air-powered and electric-powered tools, sanding discs and welding. Some say it makes a patina nicer. The silicon bronze, however, is harder, stronger, and welds more nicely. It flows much more nicely when it’s molten, but it doesn’t take the patina as nicely. Silicon bronze first started being used in the ’80s, and then became full-fledged in the ’90s, so very smart artisans have figured out how to patina the silicon bronze successfully. Most foundries use silicon bronze, and most foundries in the United States started after 1970, so they wouldn’t even have these past experiences that we have had in terms of how metal work was done in the ’30s, ’40s, and ’50s. A lot of the things we know here have been passed on from my grandfather and my father to me, and to the workers who have been here. A lot of my knowledge isn’t firsthand because I never worked with my grandfather, so the explanations and the references are what my father would explain to me.Workers at Modern Art Foundry, n.d.Courtesy Modern Art FoundryHow do models come to you for casting? What is the process after you receive the model?The traditional materials are wax, clay, and plaster, and then there’s also terracotta, stone, wood, and metal. Since the ’90s, we’ve had a lot of customers who work with found objects or non-traditional materials. And today, we’re doing a lot of work with printed resins and printed waxes, which are all 3D capable actions. Generally, the artist brings us the work nowadays; 50 years ago, an artist would have sent us something in the mail with a black and white photograph, with the dimensions on it, and my grandfather or father would have given an estimate. (I wrote an article a few years ago on how to get an estimate.) Then we’d have gone back via the mail or over the phone, but that would be the first point of contact. As the years go by, one of the big things is the relationship you develop.What happens after the estimate?Sometimes, the person will write back, asking if we can do it cheaper or in six weeks instead of eight, and we’ll see if we can do it. Then, the piece comes here, and we make a rubber mold of it, which is allows us to make the negative in wax. Then that wax is what gets retouched, and it gets invested in another mold called a casting mold. We cast both what’s considered “traditional solid investment loss wax casting” and “ceramic shell lost wax casting.” Those are just two different ways to make a mold on the wax that, after the wax is melted out, can withstand the temperature of the bronze. Most other foundries in the United States use the ceramic shell process because that method was invented in the ’70s when a lot of the other foundries started. The two big foundries in the United States are Urban Art Projects [in the Hudson Valley] and Walla Walla Foundry in Washington State; they both do sand casting, which is a process we don’t do. I always call us the big small foundry.Once you’ve started on the rubber mold, how long does the process take?It will vary depending on the size. I normally say a portrait head will take eight weeks, while a life-size figure might be 16 to 20 weeks. A lot also depends on what we’re already doing at the time when they walk through the door. The second determining factor is how fast they need it. If someone has, for example, a show in New York in April 2026, we basically have till the week before the show. Compare that to Art Basel [Miami Beach], where all the trucks leave for Florida on November 1, even though it doesn’t start until the first week of December. If somebody comes in August and says, “Can I have this for Art Basel? It’s December 5,” I’ll say, “Well, actually, it’s November 1, because that’s when the shipping company is going to want to leave, unless you’re bringing it down on the airplane with you.” Then, with something monumental, like a Louise Bourgeois “Spider” or the Wangechi Mutu sculptures we’ve done, you start getting into six months to a year, depending on the exact specifics of the piece, where it’s going, and what engineering is involved. A Lynda Benglis fountain work requires all the plumbing to be put in.Bob Spring with works produced by Modern Art Foundry. Courtesy Modern Art FoundryHow involved are the artists throughout this process?We always want the artist to check the wax. Once we have the positive in wax, that’s when an artist can make minor changes. Once we make the rubber mold, maybe because it was made of clay, something got a little pinched or moved a little bit, so the rubber mold might have picked up a little flaw. You can correct it in the wax. If you don’t correct it in the wax, it’ll now be in bronze. The idea is always to have the wax be exactly what you want it to be, though occasionally there are exceptions. Because we’ve had relationships with customers for many years, a lot of times we know what they want, so they don’t feel they need to come check their wax. Today, with digital photography, you can check waxes via photos.The next phase is always to check the bronze before it’s patinated because no casting is perfect. The finisher has to finish the work—traditionally called chasing—and then an artist will want to come before the patina or any kind of coloring because it’s always better to fix something in the bronze before the patina than it is to do so after. I often say that it is more difficult to repair or touch up a patina than it is to just redo the whole thing.The first time they do a work with us, they may want to come see the metal poured, or any of part of the process. They might to be more involved. If an artist is making larger works [on commission], the person buying it want might also want to come see the foundry, and perhaps see a pour or show them the work in process, so that they have a sense of what it is and what goes into making something.How long is the pouring part of the process?It depends on the size of the piece, but the metal takes a couple hours to melt. Then you’re pouring a few 100 pounds [of melted metal] into a couple molds; that whole process might take 10 or 15 minutes. The actual pouring might take a minute, but you have to take the crucible out of the furnace and prepare it. Once the pouring is stopped, the metal starts to cool immediately. We generally wait until the next day to open the pieces, but it’s generally hardened within a few hours. The molds actually retain the heat very well, so if you wanted to, you could open a mold up after a few hours, depending on the size and the ambient temperature. We move our molds outside. If it’s wintertime, there will be a quicker cooling period, which we might hesitate to do because you want the metal to cool at its natural pace. You don’t really want to push it along because there are some casting defects that could occur while the metal is going from a liquid to a solid.How many casts do you do a year?We usually cast twice a week, and that could be up to two castings each time, so somewhere between two and four castings a week. We do some casting out of house with our partnership with Laran Bronze. When we’re making a big piece, it might take 15 actual pours to cast the whole sculpture, versus just a head, which is one pour. At any given time, we’re working on maybe 120 projects in-house; some of those are long term projects because you have a customer that is casting their whole edition of a work. Say it’s an edition of seven. You’re doing all seven at the same time, so that’s one job or seven jobs, depending on how you look at it. Currently, we have 15 employees, so we’re actively working on 10 or 15 jobs every day, but we might have 100 jobs on order, depending on where things are in each department.How involved are you in each project?Because of the size of our place, as the face of the organization for better or worse, there are very few projects that go through here that I’m not the point person for, though I try to make it so that artists can get through here, sometimes with having less contact with me because we have very good staff members. For example, if they’re here checking the wax, they can work with our wax retoucher directly.The ARTnews Awards statues, designed by María Magdalena Campos-Pons as they are being patinaed. Maximilíano Durón/ARTnewsWhat was it like working with María Magdalena Campos-Pons to fabricate the ARTnews Awards?That was fun because ARTnews chose us. Then, Magda came here. We met each other, she showed me the piece, and we started discussing it. Then we went for a tour, and she saw all the things that we did for Louise Bourgeois and that we’ve been around for a long time. It seemed like there was a sense of sureness on her end, that she was giving her piece to someone who knew what they were doing. She got the sense that we were going to care for this work. We don’t do a lot of awards, but there aren’t a lot of well-known artists who make awards either.