Publication : French Sculpture, An American Passion

French Sculpture, An American Passion

Laure de Margerie
with a contribution by Antoinette Le Normand-Romain

Editeurs : INHA, Snoeck

ISBN 9789461618276
464 pages.

Pour se procurer l’ouvrage sur le site de l’éditeur : https://snoeckpublisher.be/product/french-sculpture/

French sculptures can be found all over the United States, from museum collections to art deco skyscraper façades. They exist in a great variety of styles ranging from neoclassicism to Gilded Age eclecticism and the twentieth-century avant-garde. What can they tell us about the relations between our two lands? The first milestone in this story was laid down in 1792 when celebrated French artist Jean-Antoine Houdon sculpted General Washington, the founder of American democracy. Nearly a century later, The Statue of Liberty became one of the country’s foremost symbols. Retracing the histories of these works, which number over 15,000 at latest estimates, we embark upon a journey across the United States with a fresh perspective. We discover public monuments, with their sometimes-controversial symbolism, and the stories of the women and men who shaped the American artistic landscape. We meet the Founding Fathers, the manufacturers who drove the nation’s economic growth, the foundrymen who handed their techniques down over the generations and the collectors behind the first museums, as well as artists such as Auguste Rodin (the most highly regarded of all French sculptors), Constantin Brancusi, and Marcel Duchamp.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
Laure de Margerie
 Chronology of a Passion
The Object of Desire
The Protagonists

POLITICS THROUGH SCULPTURE
Laure de Margerie

In the Spirit of Brotherhood
 French Sculptor for the Nation’s First Monument
Revolutionary War Heroes and the Founding Fathers
Republican Enthusiasm
The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Sculpture in the Service of Industry and Commerce
 The Exhibition of the Industry of All Nations in New York (1853-1854)
The Centennial International Exposition in Philadelphia (1876)
The World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago (1893)
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri (1904)
The Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco (1915)
The World’s Fair in New York (1939-40)
The Counterfeiting of French Bronzes
The Question of an American School

In the Shadow of Politics and Diplomacy
The United States, Land of Political Exile
The Statue of Liberty (1886)
Public Monuments by French Sculptors
Joan of Arc and Americans, a Patriotic Heroine and Feminist
An Echo of the Monuments of World War I
The Gratitude Train after World War II (1949)

SCULPTURE AS DÉCOR
Laure de Margerie

Sculpture in the City: Façades and Fountains
The First Decorators
The Art Deco Wave
Fountains and the Growing Popularity of Cast Iron
The Role of French Bronze Foundrymen in the United States

Sculpture as Garden Ornamentation
 Central Park: the First Public Park in New York City
Gilded Age Gardens
The 1920s: Between Eighteenth-Century Pastiches and Art Deco

COLLECTING SCULPTURE
Laure de Margerie

The Taste for the Art of the Present
 The First Agents and Collectors in Paris
The Taste for Animalier Sculpture
Reticence Toward the Nude
French Sculpture in the « Bric-à-Brac » of the Gilded Age
The Debate over Custom Duties

The Taste for the Art of Yesterday
 The Collectors
The Dealers
The Decorators
The Middle Ages and the Renaissance: a Journey into a Foreign Past

The Taste for the Art of Tomorrow
 The Armory Show (1913, New York, Chicago, Boston)
The new Gallery Owners
The Collectors
The Role of Museums

COLLECTING RODIN
Antoinette Le Normand-Romain

The Making of Collectors (1876-191
Chicago (1893)
The East Coast: Boston, New York, and Philadelphia
The Simpsons and New York
The Rodin Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Malvina Hoffman
Loie, «the poor impresario, charming friend»
Alma Spreckels
Samuel P. Colt

The Making of Museums (1917-1945)
San Francisco and Goldendale: Alma Spreckels and Sam Hill
Boston, Providence, and Washington, DC
Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Cambridge

The Making of Art History (since 1950)
 Balzac at the Museum of Modern Art (1955)
New York in 1963: Albert Elsen and Leo Steinberg
“Rodin rediscovered” (1981)
The Comeback of the Marbles
Rodin Today

CONCLUSION: AN ONGOING PASSION
Laure de Margerie
 A Tribute to the Dealers
A Tribute to the Collectors
A Tribute to the Academics
A Tribute to the Curators

General Bibliography
Index
Photography Credits