A survey of American sculpture

Magazine Antiques, Nov, 2004 by Allison Eckardt Ledes

In the eighteenth century the influx of European artists seeking opportunity in the United States was counterbalanced by the exodus of aspiring American artists to Europe, where they could study under accomplished teachers at established schools and academies. Regardless of this ebb and flow, until the latter part of the nineteenth century the wellspring of artistic innovation in sculpture was Europe--specifically London, Paris, Rome, and Florence. In America during the colonial era there had been many wood carvers creating ship's figureheads, church furnishings, and figures to adorn the tympanums of case furniture. The few who worked in stone were carving naive reliefs on gravestones. The absence of marble quarries, bronze foundries, and formal training in sculpture precluded the life-sized statues and busts that were the stock-in-trade of talented European sculptors. According to the sculpture historian Wayne Craven, prior to the Revolutionary War there were only four large statues in the colonies--all of them imported from England. This dearth of statuary caused one visitor to the United States in 1783 and 1784 to remark that "America has produced as yet no sculptors or engravers."

Starting about 1830 aspiring American sculptors traveled to Italy where they settled and took on commissions from American and English travelers on the grand tour. An exhibition that chronicles the movement of American sculpture away from the influence of Europe and toward independence in the twentieth century has been organized by the Gerald Peters Gallery in New York City. Nearly seventy examples in marble, wood, and bronze, largely drawn from a private collection, are on view from November 9 to December 17. Works by some twenty-five sculptors, including Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Frederic Remington, Paul Manship, and Isamu Noguchi, are included in the exhibition, which is entitled Cast and Carved: American Sculpture of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

The quality of American bronze casting had greatly improved by 1860, but during the Civil War foundries manufactured cannons rather than statues. Soon after the war, however, citizens and local governments wanted to honor those who had served in the war and commissioned public monuments in bronze. One of the best-known foundries was the Roman Bronze Works of New York City. Its artisans excelled in the lost-wax method, which allowed for much greater detail and drew sculptors like Remington to its doors.

Before and after World War I European sculptors such as Alexander Archipenko, Elie Nadelman, and Gaston Lachaise, sought refuge in the United States, where many of them became leaders of the emerging modern movement. These innovators were followed by a group of native-born sculptors who championed abstraction and other avant-garde forms of sculpture.

The catalogue of the exhibition, which contains an essay by Alice Levi Duncan, is available through the gallery at 212-628-9760.

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