Louise Nevelson: A Pioneer

Louise Nevelson - Ancient Secrets - 1964 - painted wood - 179.39 × 158.75 × 38.1 cm (70 5/8 × 62 1/2 × 15 in.) - National Gallery of Art - Washington, D.C.Louise Nevelson (1899-1988) emigrated with her family to the USA from the Ukraine in the early 20th century. Nevelson learned English at school, as she spoke only Yiddish at home. By the early 1930s she was attending art classes at the Art Students League of New York, and in 1941 she had her first solo exhibition. 

A student of Hans Hofmann and Chaim Gross, Nevelson experimented with early conceptual art using found objects, and dabbled in painting and printing before dedicating her lifework to sculpture. Usually created out of wood, her sculptures appear puzzle-like, with multiple intricately cut pieces placed into wall sculptures or independently standing pieces, often 3-D. 

One unique feature of her work is that her figures are often painted in monochromatic black or white. A figure in the international art scene, Nevelson was showcased at the 31st Venice Biennale. Her work is seen in major collections in museums and corporations. Nevelson remains one of the most important figures in 20th-century American sculpture, and is a pioneer of Assemblage Art.

Tony Smith: “Presences”

Tony Smith - Cigarette - 1961 - Painted steel - 15' 1" x 25' 6" x 18' 7” - Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), NY (click photo for larger image)American sculptor and visual artist Tony Smith (1912-1980)  was a pioneering figure in Minimalist sculpture, despite having close personal ties with the Abstract Expressionists Rothko, Pollock, Newman and Still.

Heavily influenced by his one-time employer Frank Lloyd Wright, Smith's sculptures were comprised of modular block formations, designed to physically alter the space in which they existed. 

Like the creative pioneers of the Bauhaus, Smith was not constrained by medium-boundaries. However, he moved in the opposite direction to many of the luminaries associated with that school, turning from architecture to art, rather than vice versa, to realize his creative principles. He referred to his sculptures as “presences”.

Giacometti: An Existentialist

Alberto Giacometti - Three Men Walking - 1949 - Bronze - 30 1/8 x 13 x 12 3/4 in. (76.5 x 33 x 32.4 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkSwiss artist Alberto Giacometti  (1901-1966) had a remarkable career that traced the shifting enthusiasms of European art before and after the Second World War. As a Surrealist in the 1930s, he devised innovative sculptural forms, sometimes reminiscent of toys and games. As an Existentialist after the war, he led the way in creating a style that summed up the philosophy's interests in perception, alienation and anxiety.

In the late 1930s, Giacometti abandoned both abstraction and Surrealism, becoming more interested in how to represent the human figure in a convincing illusion of real space. He wanted to depict figures in such a way as to communicate a perceptual sense of spatial distance, so that viewers, might share in the artist's own sense of distance from his subject. The solution he arrived at involved whittling the figures down to the slenderest proportions.

Giacometti’s Surrealist works influenced such sculptors as Henry Moore (discussed elsewhere on What About Art?). His figurative work was instrumental in re-establishing the figure as a viable motif in the post-war period, at a time when abstract art dominated. 

“The rough, eroded, heavily worked surfaces of "Three Men Walking (II)" [featured here] typify his technique. Reduced, as they are, to their very core, these figures evoke lone trees in winter that have lost their foliage. Within this style, Giacometti would rarely deviate from the three themes that preoccupied him—the walking man; the standing, nude woman; and the bust—or all three, combined in various groupings.” (metmuseum.org)

Brâncuși: Elegance in Simplicity

Constantin Brâncuși - Bird in Space - 1923 - Marble - 56 3/4 x 6 1/2 in. - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkRomanian-French artist Constantin Brâncuși (1876-1957) is often regarded as the most important sculptor of the 20th century. His visionary works of art often exemplify ideal and archetypal representations of their subject matter. Bearing laconic titles such as Fish, Princess X, and Bird in Space, his sculptures are deceptively simple, with their reduced forms aiming to reveal hidden truths.

Unlike the towering figure of Auguste Rodin, for whom Brâncuși briefly assisted early in his career, Brâncuși worked directly with his materials, pioneering the technique of direct carving, rather than working with intermediaries such as plaster or clay models.

“Explaining that ‘[t]he artist should know how to dig out the being that is within matter,’ Brancusi sought to create sculptures that conveyed the true essence of his subjects, be they animals, people, or objects by concentrating on highly simplified forms free from ornamentation. While many regarded his art as abstract, the artist disagreed; he insisted on the representational nature of his works, asserting that they disclosed a fundamental, often concealed, reality.” This is not far removed from Michelangelo’s claim that, “every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” (Several posts about Michelangelo appear on What About Art?)

Whether one regards Brâncuși’s work as abstract or not, there is no question that he was a “pioneering force in modern sculpture, paving the way for many generations of artists.

In the work featured here, the artist focused on the movement of the bird, rather than its physical attributes. And yet, the viewer does “see” a bird there, along with feeling its motion.

Edmonia Lewis: A Muti-faceted Heritage

Edmonia Lewis - Old Arrow Maker - modeled 1866, carved 1872 - Marble - 21 1/2 x 13 5/8 x 13 3/8 in. (54.5 x 34.5 x 34.0 cm.) - Smithsonian American Art Museum - Washington, D.C.Artist Artist Edmonia Lewis (1844-1907) was an American sculptor whose Neoclassical works exploring religious and classical themes won contemporary praise and received renewed interest in the late 20th century. Born free in New York, she was the first woman of African-American and Native American heritage to achieve international fame and recognition as a sculptor in the fine arts world. After studying at Oberlin College she became a sculptor, working in Boston and Rome despite the social challenges posed by her race and gender. Her work is known for incorporating themes relating to black people and indigenous peoples of the Americas into Neoclassical-style sculpture.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha inspired Lewis to carve the Old Arrow Maker. Her evocative subjects often reflect her dual heritage; her father was African American and her mother Chippewa (Ojibwe). The cessation of hostilities between the Ojibwe and Dakota (after years of inter-tribal war that the poem and sculpture represent) might well refer to Lewis's hopes for reconciliation between the North and South after the Civil War. In the story, Hiawatha later marries Minnehaha with the wish that ". . . old feuds might be forgotten/ And old wounds be healed forever.”