Synopses & Reviews
Sculpture 1900-1945 provides a new critical analysis of the fascinating development of sculpture in Europe and America during this important period in art history. The most comprehensive concise history of modern sculpture available, this account puts sculpture back into relation with a range of other phenomena, encompassing many kinds of architects, sculptors, and painters, with widely differing kinds of practices.
Penelope Curtis takes Rodin as her point of departure and recurrent point of reference, building a story that necessarily begins in Paris, the major artistic center of the era, and evolves around responses to Rodin by sculptors in France, Germany, Britain, and America. She charts the key developments in the practice and reception of a wide variety of sculpture, from the avant-garde to public monuments. Covering all the major figures, including Duchamp, Le Corbusier, Dali, El Lissitzsky, Brancusi, Henry Moore, and Barbara Hepworth, Sculpture 1900-1945 focuses on specific themes in each chapter, ranging from the public place of sculpture, to the private arena, to the figurative ideal. Filling a gap in the literature, Sculpture 1900-1945 is the only critically up-to-date book on the subject.
Synopsis
Sculpture 1900-1945 provides a new critical analysis of the fascinating development of sculpture in Europe and America during this important period in art history. The most comprehensive concise history of modern sculpture available, this account puts sculpture back into relation with a range of other phenomena, encompassing many kinds of architects, sculptors, and painters, with widely differing kinds of practices.
Description
1325377 Includes bibliographical references and index.
About the Author
Penelope Curtis is Curator at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, England. She has published studies of Oto Gutfreund, E. A. Bourdelle, Barbara Hepworth, Julio Gonzalez and twentieth-century British sculpture, and written catalogue essays for a number of contemporary artists.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1. The Public Place of Sculpture
Cityscape; urban planning; world's fairs and universal exhibitions; hierarchy of labour; working with architects; art nouveau; art deco; cemetery; war graves; ensembles.
Chapter 2. The Tradition of the Monument
Statuemania; form; site and process; nationalisms; authoritarianism; changing parameters.
Chapter 3. Direct Expression through the Material
Reaction to industrialisation; honesty and authenticity; modelling versus carving; sources; reciprocity; new orthodoxy; sites; assistance; speed; assemblage; inter-disciplinary.
Chapter 4. The Private Arena: The possibilities of painting, pictorialism and the spatial environment
Rodin; private space; fixing change; photography; painterliness; painting's means and subjects; relief and collage; the group ethic; Paris 1930; neo-plasticism.
Chapter 5. The Object: Function, Invitation and Interaction
The object; the readymade; anti-function and instruction; presentation; literature; absence, image, need; Dali and the Surrealist Object; the involuntary object; taking over the interior; taking over the ground.
Chapter 6. A Shared Ideal: Building a New Environment
ArtandCraft; ArtandIndustry; synthesis; team-work; Bauhaus and VKhUTEMAS; teaching; production; laboratory; theatre; exhibitions; architecture.
Chapter 7. The Figurative Ideal
After Rodin; simplification; archaism; figural types, heavy and light; anonymity; luxury and leisure; classical themes; nationalisms; celebratory body; monumental body; loss of ideal.
Conclusion
Notes; List of Illustrations; Bibliographic Essay; Timeline; Index.