The Figure in American Sculpture: A Question of Modernity Hardcover - 1995

Los Angeles and Seattle: Los Angeles County Museum of Art in association with University of Washington Press, 1995. Cloth, 247 pages, illustrations (some colour); 31 cm. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, February 26 to April 30, 1995 and three others. Near fine. Firm binding, clean inside copy. Age toning. Dust jacket protected in a mylar book cover. OVERSIZE! No priority/international, except by special arrangement. "The Figure in American Sculpture: A Question of Modernity presents American modernist sculpture in its larger cultural and social context. With the example of Auguste Rodin for inspiration, Americans at the turn of the century began to think of sculpture as a personal mode of expression, abandoning the commemorative function of late nineteenth-century art. During the first four decades of this century sculptors documented ordinary activities, often attacking the social ills of the day, and found escape from the technological advancements and materialism of American society by turning to cultures historically or geographically distant. As the works in The Figure in American Sculpture demonstrate, the result was that genre, classicism, archaism, and the search for the exotic became popular themes, enticing a greater number of progressive artists than did pure abstraction. Sculpture in general became less elitist. Many more women, African Americans, and member of other previously marginalized groups became active in the sculpture community. While past studies have isolated artists according to race, ethnic group, and gender, The Figure in American Sculpture is the first to place minorities in the mainstream. Consequently, the names of many of the sculptors represented here will be unfamiliar but in their own day they all received critical attention for their willingness to experiment with new concepts, styles, techniques, materials, and themes." - Publisher. CONTENTS: Introduction, by Ilene Susan Fort; The cult of Rodin and the birth of modernism in America, by Ilene Susan Fort; "Sculpture has never been thought a medium particularly feminine", by Marlene Park; "Mere beauty no longer suffices": the response of genre sculpture, by Ilene Susan Fort; Primitivism, folk art, and the exotic, by Roberta K. Tarbell; Creating the new black image, by Mary L. Lenihan; Avant-garde or kitsch?: modern and modernistic in American sculpture between the wars, by Susan Rather.. 1st. Hardcover. Very Good/Fine. 4to. Collectible.