Sculpture. For a time, Kearfott was interested in portrait sculpture. During 1933-34, he held an exhibit of sculptured portraits in the Studio Guild Galleries at Rockefeller Center, where his work received wide attention.
Modeling the heads of children was of special interest to him. “So much of the child’s character must necessarily be lost in a flat portrait,” he said in the New York World-Telegram. “ ‘The nape of a youngster’s neck, for instance, or the way the curls won’t be subdued with cropping, or the set of the head on sturdy little shoulders are all definitely parts of the personality. You can’t get those things in a painting. And consequently what you have lacks life and character.’ The biggest problem in painting or modeling children was neatly solved by Kearfott. He gave the youngsters a hunk of clay and let them do some modeling also.”

Bobby Kearfott
Bobby Kearfott
New York critics made the following comments about this exhibition: “Robert Kearfott has an appealing show at the Guild Galleries in Rockefeller Center…Mr. Kearfott models his heads with extreme delicacy, cultivating a

Connie Stone, 1933
Connie Stone, 1933
 refined and subtle expression which is especially effective” – Carlyle Burrows, NY Herald Tribune.  “…Whatever Mr. Kearfott’s method, it’s good. There are ten portrait heads of grave-faced or smiling children which are animated, whatever their mood, completely lovely and not in one single instance idealized
into vacuity… Robert Kearfott reveals his versatility as an artist, creating equally well paintings and sculpture…Apart from his individuality another thing to Mr. Kearfott’s credit is that he has avoided the snare into which many painters of the picturesque stumble, the sentimental rendering of the subject…” – Emily Genauer, NY World-Telegram.
8