Date: Fri 09-Jul-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: SHIRLE

Quick Words:

May-figurative-sculpture

Full Text:

Masterpieces Of Figurative Sculpture At National Sculpture Society

(with cuts)

By Stephen May

NEW YORK CITY -- Anyone interested in the history of American sculpture,

especially those who appreciate fine figurative work, should not miss

"American Masters: Sculpture from Brookgreen Gardens," on view through July 30

at the National Sculpture Society in midtown Manhattan. This impressive

display of outstanding representational work is drawn from the world-class

collection of one of America's least known yet major artistic sites,

Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet, S.C.

The Exhibition of 40 pieces, several photo murals of works too large to travel

and 20 photographs of sculptors at work, begins in the lobby of 1177 Avenue of

the Americas and continues in the National Sculpture Society gallery on the

15th floor of Americas Tower. It is suggested that visitors call in advance:

212/764-5645. This is an appropriate venue, since most works were created by

members of the venerable NSS.

The show, already seen at the Blanton Museum of Art of the University of Texas

in Austin and at the Terra Museum of American Art in Chicago, travels from New

York to the Tampa Museum of Art, where it will be on view September 5 to

October 21. It is curated by Robin R. Salmon, vice president and curator of

sculpture at Brookgreen Gardens, who also wrote much of the useful

accompanying catalogue.

The works displayed were chosen from a collection of well over 700 pieces and

have never before left Brookgreen's magnificent, landscaped grounds. Together,

they document 175 years of American sculptural achievement. While the

exhibition comprises only smaller works from the South Carolina trove --

ranging from fountain pieces and animal works to human figures, in bronze and

marble -- it hints at the marvelous sculpture in the entire collection.

Brookgreen Gardens is the brainchild of industrialist and art patron Archer M.

Huntington (1870-1955) and his wife, distinguished sculptor Anna Hyatt

Huntington (1876-1973). In the early 1930s they bought up a series of

plantations in the South Carolina low country and developed the area into

America's first public sculpture garden -- also the largest in the world.

In keeping with Anna Hyatt Huntington's oeuvre and the couple's preferences,

all works in the Brookgreen collection are figurative pieces, some of them

enormous, others tiny. They are spectacularly sited around the grounds -- in

fountains, alongside pools, atop walls, in large open fields and in

imaginative sculpture galleries. The careful positioning and development of

complementary surroundings enhances appreciation of each work in its expansive

outdoor setting.

In a word, Brookgreen Gardens is a must for all sculpture fans. The current

exhibition should do much to whet one's appetite for a trip to South Carolina.

Not surprisingly, the two most powerful images in the exhibition are the work

of our two greatest sculptors, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1848-1907) and Daniel

Chester French (1850-1931).

"The Puritan" (1887), Saint-Gaudens' homage to Samuel Chapin, a founder of

Springfield, Mass., shows the stern, formidable deacon, replete with cloak,

walking stick and Bible in hand, striding purposefully ahead. Larger versions

of this embodiment of New England fortitude can be found today outside the

museum Quadrangle in Springfield, at the Metropolitan Museum of art and at the

Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, NH, a wonderful place to

visit.

French's "Benediction" (1922), featuring an angel/female figure with

outstretched arms, sweeping wings and a shrouded face, was designed for a

Commonwealth of Massachusetts memorial to men who died in World War I, which

was to be erected near Verdun, France. Unfortunately, the project was

abandoned and the moving tribute to the fallen men was never completed.

Chesterwood, French's grand estate in Stockbridge, Mass., maintained by the

National Trust for Historic Preservation, is another important site for

sculpture aficionados to visit.

The earliest work on view, dating to around 1819, is "Bacchus," a quite

accomplished little piece that represents the first attempt at stone carving

by a teenaged Horatio Greenough (1805-1852), who became America's first

native-born professional sculptor. Born in Boston, Greenough followed studies

at Harvard with years in Rome, where he created the rather incongruous statue

of a classically-garbed George Washington that now resides in the National

Museum of American History in Washington.

Vermont native Hiram Powers (1805-1873) became the most important American

sculptor of his time, even though he pursued most of his career in Florence,

Italy. Best remembered for his "Greek Slave," he is represented in the show by

another of his finest works, "The Fisher Boy" (1846), a white marble portrayal

of a naked 13-year-old holding a conch shell to his ear to listen to the sound

of the sea.

Another sculptor who spent much of his career in Florence was Powers' friend

and fellow New Englander Thomas Ball (1819-1911), whose best works were

vigorously sculpted bronze statues, such as the heroic equestrian "George

Washington" in Boston's Public Garden and the moving "Emancipation Group

(Lincoln Freeing the Slaves)" in Washington's Lincoln Park. Ball also created

a good many smooth, sentimental works in marble for Victorian patrons, as

exemplified by "Love's Memories" (1885) in the exhibition.

A mid-century work of note is John Quincy Adams Ward's naturalistic "The

Indian Hunter" (1857), which is a smaller, bronze version of the first statue

placed in New York's Central Park. "[H]ere," said sculpture historian Wayne

Craven, "is a real Native American stealing through a grove, accompanied by an

equally skillful hunter, his canine companion."

A firm believer that Americans should sculpt American subjects realistically

in natural poses with richly textured surfaces, Ward (1830-1910) largely

trained himself in this country and played a major role in advancing the cause

of American three-dimensional work in the Nineteenth Century. His lifelike

works and the example he set for other American sculptors deserve greater

recognition than he is accorded these days.

Ward's naturalistic style was echoed in the work of Hermon Atkins MacNeil

(1866-1947), a Massachusetts native who trained in Paris, adopted subjects

from tours of the American West, and created his most famous work, "The Sun

Vow" (circa 1899) at a studio in Rome. The bronze version in the show,

depicting an aging Sioux passing on to a youngster the skills of the bow and

arrow and the traditions of the tribe, is a reduction of familiar life-size

statues in such prestigious museums as the Art Institute of Chicago, Corcoran

Gallery of Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art.

For sheer exuberance, few sculptors can match Beaux-Arts champion Frederick

MacMonnies (1863-1937) and his "Bacchante and Infant Faun" (1894). Born in

Brooklyn and trained by Saint-Gaudens, he spent much of his career in France,

although most of his sculpture was produced for American patrons. Not long

after he established his reputation with his over-the-top, allegorical

"Columbian Fountain" at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, MacMonnies

vexed bluenoses of the day with his sensual interpretation of "Bacchante."

Although it looks pretty harmless today, it "both shocked and offended

American viewers with its nudity and what was perceived as a direct reference

to inebriation," according to curator Salmon.

One of the most appealing works in the exhibition is Eli Nadelman's sleek,

elegant bronze, "Resting Stag" (1917), completed soon after the Polish-born

artist arrived in the United States. His body of innovative work, much of it

influenced by American folk art, tended to emphasize simple, rounded forms.

"Resting Stag," with its rounded, smooth form and intriguing pose, suggests

why Nadelman (1882-1946) was known as the "poet of the plastic curve" and why

there has been a recent resurgence of appreciation for his winning images.

Master of the contoured shape and floating form, grounded in ancient art and

mythological symbolism, Paul Manship's work always stands out, as exemplified

here by "The Flight of Europa"(1925). A native of St Paul who came under the

spell of archaic sculpture in Rome, Manship (1885-1966) "had the ability to

extract the essence of other cultures and make them his own, fusing diverse

elements by the white heat of his imagination into inventions of freedom and

individuality," in the words of Brookgreen sculpture authority Beatice Gilman

Proske.

Manship's enormous sundial, "Time and the Fates of Man," a star of the 1939

New York World's Fair, now stands in the middle of a landscaped meadow at

Brookgreen Gardens, offering glorious perspectives on a splendid work. In the

much smaller "Flight of Europa" the female figure of Europa rides on the back

of a bull, while a flying Eros whispers in her ear. It at least hints at why,

in Proske's view, "More than any other artist, Manship determined the

character of American sculpture in the second and third decades of the

Twentieth Century." By way of confirmation, a 1926 bronze sculpture by Manship

recently fetched an artist's record $992,500 at Christie's.

For many, a highlight of the display at the National Sculpture Society will be

Carl Paul Jennewein's gleaming, silvered bronze "The Green Dance" (1926),

which reflects the sculptor's commitment to pure outline and classical

proportion. Jennewein (1890-1978) created large-scale monuments and

architectural sculpture as well as small female nudes, of which this was one

of his most popular.

Equally elegant is "Diana" (1922), a spare, refined figurative piece by Ed

McCartan (1879-1947), whose interest in classical harmony and perfectionist

work grew out of his admiration for the oeuvre of French sculptural titan Jean

Antoine Hudon. Fountain sculpture is represented in "American Masters" by the

works of several quite different artists in that field. After an

apprenticeship with MacMonnies in Paris and inspiration from viewing Italian

Renaissance sculpture, Janet Scudder (1873-1940) because a specialist in works

for gardens. Her dancing, laughing "Frog Baby" (1901), based on a street

urchin she observed in Paris, was an immediate success, with architect

Stanford White, among others, placing her pieces with his clients.

Sweden's Carl Milles (1875-1955), called by curator Salmon the "greatest

Twentieth Century sculptor of fountains," combined humor and spiritual hope in

large works, notably his 15 life-size figure group "The Fountain of the Muses"

(1949-55). Originally commissioned by the Metropolitan Museum, where it was

sited for years, it is represented in the exhibition by a photomural. To see

the captivating original, those interested must travel to Brookgreen, to which

the Met sold it in 1982. It looks grand in its glorious adopted South Carolina

setting.

One of Milles' proteges, Marshall M. Fredericks (b 1908) has made his name

with simple, elegant works designed for fountains and other outdoor sites. His

appropriately sensuous "Persephone" (n.d.) shows the beautiful Greek goddess

of spring and queen of the underworld as she ascends from the land of the dead

to the world of the living.

Animal lovers will be charmed by the diversity of species expertly portrayed

in bronze, ranging from the playful "Penguins" (1918) by Albert Laessle

(1877-1954), to the alert "Saluki" (circa 1928) by Gertrude Lathrop

(1806-1986), to the powerful nuzzling horses in "Tete-a-Tete" (circa 1977) by

Charlotte Dunwiddie (1907-1995). The outstanding animal piece "Greyhounds

Unleashed" (circa 1928), a sleek bronze, depicts two elegant canines racing

side-by-side in a gracefully fluid composition. It was created by Katherine

Lane Weems (1899-1989) of Boston, who was inspired by the animalier work of

Huntington and the instruction of Charles Grafly.

Sculptures of the human figure run the gamut from the demure marble

"Maidenhood" (1896) by George Grey Barnard (1863-1938), to a menacing bronze

"Vulture of War" (circa 1895) by Grafly (1862-1929), to the grotesque aluminum

"The Dutchess" (circa 1914) by Henry Clews, Jr (1876-1937), who expressed his

disgust with society in ugly renderings of aging bodies and sagging flesh, as

here.

One of the most endearing pieces in the exhibition, "Boy and Squirrel" (1928),

a marble by Walker Hancock (1901-1998), combines both animal and human forms.

It shows a youngster smiling down at a squirrel that is about to eat from a

shell. One of this century's most admirable figurative sculptors, Hancock, who

died last year in Gloucester, Mass., was a prolific producer during his long

career. He is perhaps best known for his soaring memorial to Pennsylvania

Railroad employees who died in war that stands in the 30th Street Station in

Philadelphia.

Hancock also completed carving the confederate memorial (begun by Gutzon

Borglum) across the face of Stone Mountain in Georgia, created a fine standing

Lincoln in Washington's National Cathedral and sculpted numerous busts for the

United States Capitol and Supreme Court.

Quite a contrast to the serene Hancock piece is Frederic Remington's

super-animated "The Bronco Buster" (circa 1895), depicting a determined cowboy

atop a frantically rearing horse. A Yale dropout who traveled extensively in

the West but worked in a studio in New Rochelle, Remington (1861-1909) gained

fame for his illustrations and paintings recreating and mythologizing the Old

West before becoming an acclaimed sculptor of similar subjects. The largest

known edition of an American bronze sculpture, with more than 300 castings,

"Bronco Buster" also documents the veracity of the epitaph Remington chose for

himself: "He knew the horse."

Equally familiar to most viewers will be another icon of art of the American

West, James Earle Fraser's "The End of the Trail" (1915). Fraser (1876-1953),

who was born in Minnesota when it was still on the frontier and later studied

in Paris and worked with Saint-Gaudens, created public monuments honoring

heroes such as George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and General George S.

Patton, the latter for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Fraser's

rendering of a despondent Indian and his forlorn horse, an enormous hit at the

1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco, has come to symbolize the

decline of Native Americans, "a moving parable of a losing people," as the

sculptor put it.

Another outstanding Western work, "On the Border of the White Man's Land"

(1899) by Solon Borglum (1838-1922), shows an Indian (modeled by Black Eagle,

one of Custer's scouts) and horse peering intently over a windswept overlook.

Its impressionistic energy and the intriguing, linked composition of man and

steed, suggest why Borglum is such a respected interpreter of life on the

frontier, where he grew up. An inspiring teacher, author of an influential

textbook and proponent of incorporating native ideals and models into American

sculpture, Borglum spent his last years in Wilton, Conn., where his studio

still stands.

Solon's slightly older brother, Gutzon Borglum (1867-1941), famed for his

colossal presidential portraits at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, is

represented in the show by "Head of Nero" (1902), portraying a face filled

with madness or perhaps terror that reflects the artist's debt to the great

French sculptor, Auguste Rodin.

Familiar to drivers around Manhattan will be the exhibition's miniaturized

version of "Joan of Arc" (1910) by Anna Hyatt Huntington. A Massachusetts

native who was largely self-taught, she astounded the art world -- which

thought no woman could create such a large, accomplished work -- with her

first monument, the equestrian "Joan of Arc" (1915) that overlooks Riverside

Drive at 93rd Street. It was the first equestrian statue of a woman subject by

a female sculptor and the first to depict the charismatic saint with accurate

arms and armor.

Anna Hyatt continue to be a leading sculptor, particularly of animals, after

her marriage to Archer Huntington. Her elegant, lithe "Diana of the Chase,"

beautifully sited at a focal point at Brookgreen Gardens, once graced the

dining room of the Huntingtons' home at 1083 Fifth Avenue, and was

subsequently given to the National Academy of Design. Many of her accomplished

works dot the grounds at Brookgreen.

As befits selections from a collection initially formed by a major female

sculptor, there are numerous examples of work by outstanding women artists in

the exhibition. Among the best are "The Windy Doorstep" (1910) by the often

overlooked Abstenia Eberle (1878-1942), who pioneered in genre sculpture;

"Caryatid" (1913) by the talented Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1877-1942), who

balanced roles as art patron and serious artist; and "Basket Dancer" (1987) by

Glenna Goodacre (b 1939), a Texan who often depicts Native Americans but is

best known for her moving "Vietnam Women's Memorial" in Washington. These and

several other examples underscore the significant achievements of American

women sculptors.

For those who value high quality, representational sculpture, this exhibition

is a welcome reminder of the breadth and diversity of American accomplishments

in this field. It is also a key element in raising national awareness of the

importance of Brookgreen Gardens' exemplary collection of figurative work.

Located 18 miles south of Myrtle Beach and 75 miles north of Charleston,

Brookgreen may be a little out of the way for some, but a visit to its grand

display, in a glorious setting, is well worth the trip.

For information, write Brookgreen Gardens, PO Box 3368, Pawleys Island, S.C.

29585 or call 800/849-1931.