Arikah Map

Sculpture of the United States

To meet Wikipedia's quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup.
Please discuss this issue on the talk page, or replace this tag with a more specific message. Editing help is available.
This article has been tagged since January 2006.
Arts of the
United States

Architecture
Cinema
Comic books
Cuisine
Dance
Literature
Music
Poetry
Sculpture
Television
Theater
Visual arts

The history of sculpture in the United States reflects the country's 18th century foundation in Roman republican civic values as well as Protestant Christianity, both of which sought truth in the spoken word of orator or minister and neither requiring the visualizaton of magnificence, power, solemnity, or profundity that characterized the sculptural traditions of European (as well as Asian) civilizations.


Contents

Decorative art

The art of the silversmith reflected the spiritual values of the prosperous Puritan, and these simple but elegant objects took their place in fashionable homes.

Coffee pot, 1770, Philadelphia, Joseph Richardson (1711-1784)
Sauceboat (1740-1758), Boston, Jacob Hurd (1720-1758)

Folk art

There is always art in well-made tombstones, iron products, furniture, toys, and tools — perhaps better reflecting the character of a people than sculptures made in classical styles for social elites.

One of these specific applications, the wooden figure-heads for ships, launched the career the country's first famous sculptor, William Rush (1756-1833) of Philadelphia.

Ship's figure head, artist unknown, c. 1830, Art Institute of Chicago
Preacher, c. 1830,Art Institute of Chicago
William Rush - portrait of General Andrew Jackson, 1815, Art Institute of Chicago

The Italian years

In the 1830s, the first generation of notable American sculptors studied and lived in Italy, particularly in Florence and Rome, carving marble and practicing Italian neo-classicism. They included Horatio Greenough (1805-1852), Hiram Powers 1805-1873, Thomas Crawford, and (somewhat later) William Henry Rinehart.

Hiram Powers - portrait of Potter Palmer, 1871, Art Institute of Chicago
Horatio Greenough (1805-1852),Abdiel 1838-43

19th century American women sculptors

American women also became active sculptors during the Italian Period despite the sexism of the trades. Among them were Harriet Hosmer and Emma Stebbins (the Bethesda Fountain in New York's Central Park).

Harriet Hosmer (1830-1908), Zenobia - Queen of Palmyra, 1857, Art Institute of Chicago

The Paris years

In the following decades, American sculptors more often went to Paris to study — falling in with the more naturalistic and dramatic style exemplified by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827-1875) and Antoine-Louis Barye (1796-1875). Among them were Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Daniel Chester French, and John Quincy Adams Ward.

Freedman, 1862,John Quincy Adams Ward (1830-1910)
The Daniel Chester French sculpture at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C..
Daniel Chester French, Lincoln (detail), 1916, Art Institute of Chicagosdgd f

Home grown

American sculpture of the mid- to late-19th century was often classical, often romantic, but showed a special bent for a dramatic, narrative, almost journalistic realism (especially appropriate for nationalistic themes) like frontier life depicted by Frederick Remington. This was the beginning of the style of "western art" that continued with Alexander Phimister Proctor and others through the 20th into the 21st century.

The Bronco Buster by Frederick Remington, limited edition#17 of 20, 1909.

Wildlife sculptors

The naturalism of the French school, exemplified by Barye, had a great impact on the first sculptors of American wildlife.

Edward Kemeys (1833-1907),Locked in Death, 1886

Public monuments

As the century closed, the pace of monument building quickened in the great cities of the east, especially to memorialize the Civil War, and several outstanding sculptors emerged most of them trained in the beaux arts academies of Paris. Daniel Chester French stands out, as do Frederick William Macmonnies, Hans Schuler, and Lorado Taft. This tradition continued to the 1940s with Charles Keck, Alexander Stirling Calder and others.

The Robert Gould Shaw Memorial, Boston Common, commemorates Shaw and the Afro-American 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, St. Gaudens
Princeton Battle Monument, [[Princeton, New Jersey], MacMonnies]
Thatcher Memorial Fountain, Denver, Colorado, Taft

Twentieth century

As the new century began, many young European sculptors migrated to the free, booming economy of across the Atlantic, and European-born sculptors account for much of the great work done before 1950 (C. Paul Jennewein, Maldarelli, Ruotolo, Elie Nadelman, Albin Polasek, Gaston Lachaise, Carl Milles, Karl Bitter).

Architectural sculpture

Public buildings of the first half of the 20th century provided an architectural setting for sculpture, especially in relief. Karl Bitter, Lee Lawrie, Adolph Alexander Weinman, C. Paul Jennewein, Rene Paul Chambellan and many others worked in the simple, often narrative style that fit these spaces.

Lee Lawrie grille work from the Education Building, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, 1930s.
Copper repoussé relief sculpture by Maurice Ascalon adorned the façade of the 1939 New York World's Fair's Jewish Palestine Pavilion.

Modern Classicism

Several notable American sculptors joined in the revitalization of the classical tradition at this time, most notably Paul Manship, who discovered archaic Greek sculpture while studying on a scholarship in Rome. Edward McCartan was another leader in this direction who fit easily with the art-deco tastes of the 1920s.Into the 1930s and 1940s, the ideologies that rent European politics began to be reflected in associations of American sculptors. On the right was the group, mostly native born, mostly old-school classical, mostly modelers of clay, who founded the National Sculpture Society, led by the heiress/sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and preserved in the sculpture park that she endowed — Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina.

Paul Manship, Dancer with Gazelles, 1916

American Expressionism

On the left, often immigrant, often expressionistic, was the New York based Sculptor's Guild, with an emphasis on more current themes and direct carving in wood or stone. Its most famous member was William Zorach.

African American sculptors

With the Harlem Renaissance, an African-American sculpture emerged. Richmond Barthé was an outstanding example. Others included Elizabeth Catlett and Martin Puryear.

Richmond Barthé "Boxer" (the Cuban featherweight, "Kid Chocolate"),1942]]

The turn towards abstraction

Some Americans, like Isamu Noguchi had already moved from figurative to non-figurative design, but after 1950, the entire American artworld took a dramatic turn away from the figurative traditions, especially as exemplified by its application by the totalitarian and genocidal regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, and America led the free world into a more iconoclastic and theoretical approach to modernism.

Within the next 10 years, traditional sculpture education would almost be completely replaced by a Bauhaus influenced concern for abstract design. To accompany the triumph of abstract expressionist painting, heroes of abstract sculpture, like David Smith, emerged, and many new materials were explored for sculptural expression. Louise Nevelson pioneered the emerging genre of environmental sculpture.

Isamu Noguchi's Black Slide Mantra
Baron's Moon, 1958, David Smith (1906-1965)
Alexander Calder's L'empennage (1953)
Spoonbridge and Cherry by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen

Pushing the boundaries of art

The figure returned in the 1960s, but without the beaux-arts figurative tradition, sometimes even as life-casts such as George Segal made with plaster. Jim Gary created life-sized figures composed of metal washers and hardware almost invisibly welded together, as well as, ones of stained glass and, even used automobile parts and tools in his sculptures.

Concerns for the qualities of forms and design continued—but usually without representing a human figure. Minimalist sculpture by artists such as Richard Serra and Norman Carlberg often replaced the figure in public settings. Artworld and university sculpture of the late 20th century was mostly a playful exploration on the boundaries of what could be called art.

Late 20th century revival of figurative sculpture

Other kinds of sculpture continued throughout the century and grew in importance. Leaders in ironwork included Samuel Yellin A center for the western style of American sculpture was developed at Loveland, Colorado, and many studios, magazines, and even a museum (the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City) pursued this interest. A neo-Victorian style emerged pioneered by the sculptor of the National Cathedral, Frederick Hart. Meanwhile, many American sculptors persisted in their pre-war, modern/classical style training. Some of these include Milton Horn, Charles Umlauf, John Waddell and Joseph Erhardy.

The Three Soldiers at the Vietnam War memorial in Washington, D.C. by Frederick Hart
Milton Horn (1906-1995) "Chicago Rising from the Lake" (detail), 1954

Other genres of sculpture

The art-doll and ceramic sculpture communities also grew in numbers and importance in the late 20th century, while the entertainment industry required large scale, spectacular (sometimes monstrous or cartoon-like ) sculpture for movie sets, theme parks, casinos, and athletic stadiums. Industrial product design, especially automobiles, should not be ignored.

References

Categories


Cleanup from January 2006 | American art | Sculpture

Find

Find

Find