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Summary
Summary
Commemorating the 100th anniversary of the National Sculpture Society, this important history traces America's rich heritage of figurative sculpture from the Columbian exposition of 1893 to the present. Illustrated with outstanding examples of American figurative sculpture of the last century, this volume begins with an analysis of the influence of the Beaux-Arts tradition on the creation of the great public monuments of the young republic. With this background, the book moves on to survey important categories of sculpture chronologically. Equestrian monuments and countless tributes to war heroes are surveyed in one category. In another important grouping, author David Martin Reynolds surveys portrait sculpture. He also includes a section on medallic art, a category usually neglected in sculpture surveys. In another innovation, Dr. Reynolds devotes a chapter to American Indians, both as widely favored subjects for sculpture and as sculptors themselves. Not neglecting genre, the author deals extensively with the large group of sculptors who concentrated on animals. Finally he surveys the figurative tradition in the twentieth century and speculates on future trends in sculpture. Donald Martin Reynolds teaches at the School of Architecture, Columbia University, in New York City and is the author of many articles and books on sculpture, including Monuments and Masterpieces, which was favorably reviewed in the New York Times Book Reviews. 210 illustrations
Reviews (3)
Booklist Review
These two volumes document two poles of American figurative sculpture, a genre one might expect to be lifelike and noble, commemorative or celebratory. Gaston Lachaise defied all such conventions, while the artists highlighted in Reynolds' study in essence defined them.French American sculptor Lachaise (1882-1935) was obsessed with the image of the archetypal female. The lodestone for his lifelong fascination with the female form was a woman named Isabel Dutaud Nagle. Lachaise fell in love at first sight when he met this American matron 10 years his senior in Paris. Eventually he emigrated to America, married his muse, and devoted his life to expressing his adoration for her and all she stood for in his highly charged personal mythology. David Finn's superb photographs document dozens of Lachaise's creations, while Hunter, an astute and unusually articulate art historian, describes the evolution of Lachaise's aesthetic from his early forthright and curvaceously elegant figures to his later disturbingly explicit, even exploitive works that are, in some quarters, still considered controversial. As Lachaise depicted the changes wrought by time and gravity on flesh and bone, his once bountiful females became grotesque and exaggerated, brutally exposed without a shred of romanticism or sentimentality. This frankness may be distasteful, even shocking, for his audience, but not for Lachaise. His passion never dimmed. This is an important and stimulating reconsideration of a misunderstood but irrefutably powerful artist.Masters of American Sculpture is also a reconsideration, but of an entire genre rather than a single artist, the genre of traditional figurative sculpture. Reynolds surveys a century of figurative sculpture in America, calling our attention to the nobility and beauty of public art works we often take for granted, such as monuments, portraits, and war memorials. Reynolds, a sculpture and architecture expert on the faculty of Columbia University, describes the figurative tradition as the "most accurate barometer of civilization's attitude toward humanity and the most sensitive measure of society's respect for human dignity." He goes on to explore the relationship between architecture and sculpture and to identify various styles and themes. Examples run the gamut from the allegorical figures that grace government buildings to the gargantuan portraits on Mount Rushmore. By the conclusion of this eye-opening presentation, we agree that genre sculpture has been given short shrift. ~--Donna Seaman
Choice Review
Surveys of American sculpture are relatively scarce. Among the finest since the late 1960s are Wayne Craven's Sculpture in America (CH, Feb'69), the 1976 catalog for the Whitney Museum of American Art's 200 Years of American Sculpture (CH, Sep'76), and the 1986 American Figurative Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston by Kathryn Greenthal et al. Reynolds's study must be added to this distinguished group. Furthermore, because of its iconographic focus, intellectual integrity, excellent plates (65 color, 225 black-and-white), fine production qualities, and reasonable price, if not its temporal parameters, it should be considered a worthy complement to the 1986 catalog of the MFA's collection. Reynolds (Columbia), who has published on American sculpture and architecture, here considers the work of sculptors working predominantly from 1893 to the present day, with consideration of several earlier artists, such as Hiram Powers (the subject of his 1975 PhD dissertation) and John Quincy Adams Ward. Represented are such well-known artists as Saint-Gaudens, Borglum, French, Huntington, Hoffman, Robus, and Segal but also many of the lesser known, such as Attilio Piccirilli and Charles Parks. All are discussed in iconographic chapters--e.g., Beaux-Arts architecture and the human figure, equestrian monuments, the portrait, the medal, genre subjects, and 20th-century transfigurations. Accessible to general readers as well as to students and scholars of American art and history. Recommended for public, academic, and museum library collections. J. Weidman; Oberlin College
Library Journal Review
For much of the 20th century, critics viewed American representational sculpture, particularly public sculpture, as old-fashioned and irrelevant. Its ``deterioration'' on the art history scale was paralleled by physical threat in the form of vandalism and environmental pollutants. Recently, art historians and preservationists have awakened a renewed appreciation of the form. Reynolds (Sch. of Architecture, Columbia), who was commissioned by the National Sculpture Society to write this volume marking the 100th anniversary of its founding, has chosen to focus on public sculpture from this time span, beginning with the Beaux Arts style. Chapters cover such subject matter as equestrians, military figures, Native Americans, and scenes of everyday life. The medal as an art form and contemporary sculpture are also discussed. Reynolds informs us not only about sculptors, their inspiration, and their intent but also the aims of those who commissioned and placed such works and the responses that pieces have evoked over time. Detailed footnotes make up for the lack of a bibliography in this richly illustrated volume. Recommended for urban public libraries in the Northeast and art collections generally.-- Kathleen Eagen Johnson, Historic Hudson Valley, Tarrytown, N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
