Mother and Child, ca. 1924, alabaster relief in wood frame, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of John N. Stern, 1996.89A-B
Born
June 29, 1890
Concarneau, France
Died
April 20, 1970
Cape Neddick, Maine
Education
British Academy
Knownfor
American Pioneer of "Direct Carving." Co-Founder of The Ogunquit Summer School of Graphic Arts (Maine)
Notable work
Sculpture at Radio City Music Hall
Movement
Modernism
Spouse
Mimi Caraes
Awards
National Institute of Arts & Letters, National Sculpture Society, American Academy in Rome, Sculptor's Guild
Robert Laurent (June 29, 1890 – April 20, 1970) was a French-American modernist figurative sculptor, printmaker and teacher. His work, the New York Times wrote,"figured in the development of an American sculptural art that balanced nature and abstraction."[1] Widely exhibited, he took part in the Whitney's 1946 exhibition Pioneers of Modern Art.[1] Credited as the first American sculptor to adopt a "direct carving" sculpting style that was bolder and more abstract than the then traditional fine arts practice, which relied on models, Laurent's approach was inspired by the African carving and European avant-garde art he admired, while also echoing folk styles found both in the U.S. and among medieval stone cutters of his native Brittany.[2] Best known for his virtuoso mastery of the figure, Laurent sculpted in multiple media, including wood, alabaster, bronze, marble and aluminum. His expertise earned him major commissions for public sculpture, most famously for the Goose Girl for New York City's Radio City Music Hall, as well as for Spanning the Continent for Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. After the Depression, he was also the recipient of several Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Art Project commissions under the New Deal, including a bas-relief called Shipping for the exterior of Washington, D.C.'s Federal Trade Commission Building,[3] commissioned by the Treasury Department's Section of Fine Arts in 1938.[4]
Laurent was born the son of French peasants in Concarneau, Brittany, France in 1890. His skill in art was recognized by Brooklyn Eagle art critic, painter and collector Hamilton Easter Field who mentored him, taught him to paint and served as Laurent's surrogate father for the rest of his life.[1]
In 1908, Field took Laurent to Rome, where he trained with Maurice Sterne and wood carver Giuseppe Doratori,[5] before formally studying at the British Academy. Upon graduation, Laurent moved permanently to the U.S. at age twenty, only to quickly return to Europe as a member of the navy during the First World War.[6][7] In Europe, Laurent traveled to his native Brittany where he met Mimi Caraes, who became his wife.[8]
Field died in 1922, leaving Laurent his Brooklyn home, the Ogunquit school they had co-founded[9] and an art collection, which Laurent later used to establish as the Hamilton Easter Field Foundation with the help of other New York artists.[6][10]
The Ogunquit Summer School of Graphic Arts
In the summer of 1902, Field and 12-year-old Laurent traveled to Ogunquit, Maine, a popular destination for artists, drawn by the landscape.[11] During their stay, Field "bought a row of shacks that he started renting out cheap to artists."[11] In 1911, Field and Laurent built a studio there and co-founded the Ogunquit Summer School of Graphic Arts. Field taught drawing and painting until his death, and Laurent taught sculpture and wood carving there for the next 50 years.[3][12]
There was, however, another art school in Ogunquit. Founded by Field's former teacher, Charles Woodbury's Ogunquit Summer School of Drawing and Painting was heavily influenced by the "regional impressionist" style of painting also known as the Boston School.[11] One of the school's more famous students was Edward Hopper.[11] Field and Laurent were, conversely, committed modernists, and appealed to more experimental students and colleagues, such as Marsden Hartley, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Niles Spencer, gallery owner Edith Gregor Halpert and curator Holger Cahill, among others.[9] Together, the two schools transformed a town of fewer than 1,000 into Maine's largest art colony, an achievement that resulted, in 1953, in the opening of the Ogunquit Museum of American Art.[11]
Public collections
Public collections across the United States hold Laurent's work, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Art Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Addison Gallery, Indiana University and the Terra Foundation for Art, among others.[13]
Awards and honors
Robert Laurent, Goose Girl, ca. 1932, cast aluminum, Radio City Music Hall, New York City
In 1938, Laurent won the second of two Logan Prizes at the Art Institute of Chicago's annual American art exhibition.[3] In 1945, he won the Audubon Sculpture Award in New York, several first prizes in Hoosier salons, and in exhibits at the John Herron Museum, Indianapolis. He received high distinction in 1954 when was named sculptor in residence at the American Academy in Rome for a year.
Laurent's son, John, was a prominent painter in Maine, known for his landscapes and seascapes.[19]
Related Research Articles
Paul Howard Manship was an American sculptor. He consistently created mythological pieces in a classical style, and was a major force in the Art Deco movement. He is well known for his large public commissions, including the iconic Prometheus in Rockefeller Center and the Celestial Sphere Woodrow Wilson Memorial in Geneva, Switzerland. He is also credited for designing the modern rendition of New York City's official seal.
Carl Paul Jennewein was a German-born American sculptor.
Robert Indiana was an American artist associated with the pop art movement.
Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington was an American sculptor who was among New York City's most prominent sculptors in the early 20th century. At a time when very few women were successful artists, she had a thriving career. Hyatt Huntington exhibited often, traveled widely, received critical acclaim at home and abroad, and won multiple awards and commissions.
Chaim Gross was an American sculptor and educator of Ukrainian Jewish origin. Gross studied and taught at the Educational Alliance Art School in New York City’s Lower Manhattan. He summered for many years in Provincetown.
Donald Harcourt De Lue was an American sculptor, best known for his public monuments.
Allan Capron Houser or Haozous was a Chiricahua Apache sculptor, painter, and book illustrator born in Oklahoma. He was one of the most renowned Native American painters and Modernist sculptors of the 20th century.
Attilio Piccirilli was an American sculptor. Born in Massa, Italy, he was educated at the Accademia di San Luca of Rome.
Edward Kemeys was an American sculptor and considered America's first animalier.
Brenda Putnam was an American sculptor, teacher and author.
John Clements Gregory was an American sculptor.
Hamilton Easter Field (1873–1922) was an American artist, art patron, connoisseur, and teacher, as well as critic, publisher, and dealer. Highly regarded for his knowledge of Japanese prints and his passion for American folk art and crafts, he was also praised for his devotion to contemporary American art, for his defense of non-juried art exhibitions, and for the support he gave to talented artists. At his death, the painter Wood Gaylor said of him: "Mr. Field was one of those rare personalities that come to the front once in a century or so. A combination of painter, critic, teacher and editor, he gave all his time and genius to the furtherance of American art...."
Vincent Glinsky was an American sculptor. He is especially noted for his architectural decorations.
Granville Wellington Carter NA, Fellow National Sculpture Society was an American sculptor.
Charles Eugene Tefft was an American sculptor born in Brewer, Maine. His statue of Hannibal Hamlin is one of Maine's two statues in the National Statuary Hall Collection located in the US Capitol in Washington D.C. A second Tefft statue of Hamlin stands in Norumbega Mall in downtown Bangor, Maine.
Cornelia Van Auken Chapin was an American sculptor and animalier born in Waterford, Connecticut. She was known for her stone models of birds and animals, which she largely carved directly from life and without preliminary models or sketches.
Eugenie Frederica Shonnard (1886–1978) was an American sculptor and painter born in Yonkers, New York.
Marion Sanford was an American sculptor known for her bronze portraits of women engaged in everyday domestic activities.
Richard Van Buren is an American sculptor and painter. He is an artist who, throughout his lifetime, has tested the boundaries of what sculpture should look like. He was quite active in the New York art world in the 1960s and 1970s, and still continues his art-making practices, though he now lives in Maine. His sculptures and works on paper are best summarized by experimentation between the limits of natural/organic and the man-made/inorganic materials; and he often combines the two in combinations that evoke light and contradict our assumptions.
Bernard Karfiol was an American painter and watercolorist. His work was indebted to French modernism and wished to synthesize Hellenic classical painting and modernist abstract concerns.
↑ Armstrong, Craven et al, ‘’200 Years of American Sculpture’’, David R. Godine, Publisher in association with the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1976, p 286
1 2 "Robert Laurent, Art & Artist File, Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library, Smithsonian Libraries, Washington D.C. 9/29/2017". Courier-Journal. July 24, 1960.
↑ "Robert Laurent, Art & Artist File, Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library, Smithsonian Libraries, Washington D.C. 9/29/2017". Courier-Journal, Louisville, KY. July 24, 1960.
↑ Schwartz, L.H., "Cultural Infiltration: A New Propaganda Strategy for a New Era of Soviet—West Relations.", Political Warfare against the Kremlin. Global Conflict and Security since 1945., London: Palgrave Macmillan
↑ "Robert Laurent Art & Artist File, Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library, Smithsonian Libraries, Washington D.C. 9/29/2017".
↑ "Robert Laurent, Art & Artist File, Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library, Smithsonian Libraries, Washington D.C. 9/29/2017". Louisville, KY. Courier-Journal. July 24, 1960.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
