From neo-classical and Beaux-arts to modernism

About this book

Important contributions made by sculptors whose work helped shape the history of American art in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are featured here, from figurative works from late Neo-Classical marbles through the bronzes of the Beaux-Arts school into the twentieth century with the advent of modernism. This insightful overview features key works by some of the pivotal artists, including Thomas Ball, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Jo Davidson, and Alexander Archipenko, as well as valuable examples by artists whose contributions expanded the field. The book begins with the high Neo-Classical work by Randolph Rogers, Cupid Breaking His Bow, ca. 1851, through August Saint-Gaudens and Daniel Chester French who established the standard by which the Beaux-Arts school is understood, to the turn of the century when a handful of immigrants made increasingly important modernist changes in the field of sculpture in America. This passage in American sculpture is seen to be erratic, varied and not strictly linear as the influences of Europe mixed with the independent spirit of America to forge expressions rich, diverse, and worthy of further scrutiny.