A survey of American sculpture.(Current and coming)

In the eighteenth century the influx of European artists seeking opportunity in the United States was counterbalanced by the exodus of aspiring American artists to Europe, where they could study under accomplished teachers at established schools and academies. Regardless of this ebb and flow, until the latter part of the nineteenth century the wellspring of artistic innovation in sculpture was Europe--specifically London, Paris, Rome, and Florence. In America during the colonial era there had been many wood carvers creating ship's figureheads, church furnishings, and figures to adorn the tympanums of case furniture. The few who worked in stone were carving naive reliefs on gravestones. The absence of marble quarries, bronze foundries, and formal training in sculpture precluded the life-sized statues and busts that were the stock-in-trade of talented European sculptors. According to the sculpture historian Wayne Craven, prior to the Revolutionary War there were only four large statues in the colonies--all of them imported from England. This dearth of statuary caused one visitor to the United States in 1783 and 1784 to remark that "America has produced as yet no sculptors or engravers."

Starting about 1830 aspiring American sculptors traveled to Italy where they settled and took on commissions from American and English travelers on the grand tour. An exhibition that chronicles the movement of American sculpture away from the influence of Europe and toward independence in the twentieth century has been ...