Page 61 - The Hunt - Winter 2022

BY ROGER MORRIS
PHOTOS BY JIM GRAHAM
The rambling old brick building stands in an almost deserted section of battered, post-industrial Chester. To fully appreciate what goes on inside, it helps to first visit some of the lovely cultural oases of the region—places like Mt. Cuba, Brandywine River Museum of Art and Longwood Gardens. There you’ll find bronze statues of fatted pigs, nuzzling Nubian goats, boys with hawks, coursing greyhounds, cud-chewing cows, frolicking foxes and even a 13-foot winged samara. All were initially carved in clay by regional sculptors like J. Clayton Bright or the late André Harvey and Charles Parks. And all were given their first breath of life in the glowing furnaces of Laran Bronze Fine Art Foundry & Studio.
“We’re pouring Clayton’s hounds today,” says Lawrence “Larry” Welker III, who co-founded Laran Bronze four decades ago and still runs the place. He has some assistance from his son, also named Larry but who sometimes answers to “Lawrence” to distinguish himself from his dad. The two operate the foundry with a staff of nine, turning out bronzes of all shapes and sizes, many in signed and numbered editions that will fetch thousands of dollars and wind up
in private homes and public spaces worldwide.
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