SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Approximately 55 ceramic and bronze works spanning the career of sculptor Stephen De Staebler (1933–2011) will be installed in the American art galleries at the de Young Museum from January 14 to April 22, 2012. Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler and its accompanying monograph commemorate the life and work of the renowned Bay Area artist, who died earlier this year in his Berkeley home. For more than 50 years, De Staebler created figurative sculptures from clay—a medium that derives from the primordial earth. Drawing inspiration from childhood experiences with nature, a transformative adolescent encounter with human mortality, and adult studies in the history of art and religion, he explored and extended a tradition of human representation that includes the religious monuments of ancient Egypt, the Renaissance humanism of Michelangelo’s finished and unfinished figures, and the modern existentialism embodied in the works of Alberto Giacometti.