Master collaborators

Master figurative sculptor Richard MacDonald, who owns the Dawson Cole Fine Art in Laguna Beach, has created a new exclusive, permanent gallery capturing images of Cirque du Soleil performers in the “O” Theatre lobby at Bellagio in Las Vegas.

Cirque du Soleil is showcasing more than 50 bronze sculptures along with original drawings, serigraphs and lithographs.

The new gallery was born out of a relationship between Macdonald and Guy Laliberté, founder of Cirque du Soleil.

MacDonald said he and Laliberté are “similar in lifelong creative goals,” focusing on the spectrum of performing life, capturing a fleeting moment in time, and immortalizing the grace, strength, joy and discipline of dancers and acrobats.

“The Art of Richard MacDonald reveals the infinite beauty of the human body. The characters he creates are playing forever in the theatre of life,” Laliberté said.

Similarly, Picasso created a series of paintings based on his experiences under the bright pink tent of the Circus Medrano, which was near his studio in Paris. Chagall, in Paris at the same time, was led by his penchant for fantasy and mythology to devote a major body of work to the circus “” he once said that circus performers reminded him of the figures in religious paintings.

Works from the Cirque series also are exhibited at Dawson Cole Fine Art. For additional gallery information, visit www.dawsoncolefineart.com.