Research Catalog

Title

Sculpture of the Twentieth Century / by Andrew Carnduff Ritchie.

Author

Ritchie, Andrew Carnduff.

Publication

New York : Museum of Modern Art, [1952]

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

Museum of Modern Art (New York, N.Y.)

Description

238 pages : chiefly illustrations; 26 cm

Summary

"In surveying such a complex period as the past fifty years I have of necessity, for space and other reasons, composed an anthology of sculptors. This anthology is, I hope, sufficiently extensive to give a fair picture of the diverse directions sculpture has taken in our century. A systematic history would take volumes, and no one as yet has had the courage or the industry to attempt it. Failing such an all-inclusive history, I have chosen to outline the general stylistic currents leading up to the present and to illustrate them with major and less major sculptors who seem to me to have made a definite contribution to art. This is a subjective choice, as all such choices must be. My choice of younger sculptors who have only become known in the past decade is undoubtedly the most subjective of all. Even so, I have tried here to avoid nationalistic bias as much as possible and have included only work that I have personally seen and consider to have unusual merit. There is undoubtedly work by younger men and I have not seen that is of equal merit. The limitations of one pair of eyes must serve as my apology to them for my neglect. A word about the arrangement of the plates. They follow the progression of leading sculptors or movements discussed in the text. An alphabetical arrangement would be useful for quick reference but would make no other sense. (Sculptors will be found listed alphabetically in the Biographical Notes, pp. 225-232, and under each entry reference is made to the illustrations devoted to each artist.) A strictly chronological succession presents serious mechanical difficulties as between the text and the plates. I have chosen rather a loosely chronological arrangement of works that seem to derive more from one movement than another or that show the direct or indirect influence of one or other of such great masters as Rodin, Maillol or Brancusi. Sculptors, like Picasso, who have worked in different modes appear under several groupings. Works of the past decade, of whatever tendency, I have grouped together, at the end, the older giants with the younger protagonists. The reader then may compare the vitality of the one with the other and perhaps gain a more dynamic idea of the intensity of low, the coalescence or divergence of the various stylistic streams that continue to have a vigorous existence at mid-century." --

Subject

• Sculpture
• Sculpture première
• Sculpture
• Plastische kunst
• Sculpture, Modern > 20th century

Bibliography (note)

• Bibliography: p. 233-237.

Contents

Sculpture's position today -- Sculpture and painters -- Form and content -- The object in relation to light : Rodin and his influence -- The object idealized : Maillol and related sculptors -- The object purified : Brancusi and ogranic abstraction -- The object dissected : the Cubists and Futurists -- The object constructed on geometric principles -- The object and the subconscious : the Surrealists -- The last decade : old and new tendencies -- Sculptors on sculpture -- Biographical notes / by Maragret Miller.

LCCN

53009361

OCLC

• ocm01231781
• 1231781
• SCSB-2048985

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library