The Thinker is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin, situated atop a stone pedestal. The work depicts a nude male figure of heroic size sitting on a rock. He is seen leaning over, his right elbow placed on his left thigh, holding the weight of his chin on the back of his right hand. The pose is one of deep thought and contemplation, and the statue is often used as an image to represent philosophy.
Gaston Lachaise was a French-born sculptor, active in America in the early 20th century. A native of Paris, he is most noted for his robust female nudes such as his heroic Standing Woman. Gaston Lachaise was taught the fundamentals of European sculpture while living in France. While still a student, he met and fell in love with an older American woman, Isabel Dutaud Nagle, then followed her after she returned to America. There, he became profoundly impressed by the great vitality and promise of his adopted country. Those life-altering experiences clarified his artistic vision and inspired him to define the female nude in a new and powerful manner. His drawings, typically made as ends in themselves, also exemplify his remarkably new treatment of the female body.
Anna Vaughn 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.
The Age of Bronze is a bronze statue by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840–1917). The figure is of a life-size nude male, 72 in. (182.9 cm) high. Rodin continued to produce casts of the statue for several decades after it was modelled in 1876.
Roman Bronze Works, now operated as Roman Bronze Studios, is a bronze foundry in New York City. Established in 1897 by Riccardo Bertelli, it was the first American foundry to specialize in the lost-wax casting method, and was the country's pre-eminent art foundry during the American Renaissance.
Samuel Aloysius Murray was an American sculptor, educator, and protégé of the painter Thomas Eakins.
Crouching Woman is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin.
The Back Series is a series of four bas-relief sculptures, by Henri Matisse. They are Matisse's largest and most monumental sculptures. The plaster originals are housed in the Musée Matisse in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France.
Kiepenkerl was originally a sandstone statue of a travelling merchant created by August Schmiemann in Münster, Germany in 1896. Destroyed in World War II, it was re-created in cast metal by Albert Mazzotti Jr in 1953. The statue now stands in a small square in the Old Quarter of Münster. In 1987 American sculptor Jeff Koons created a replica of the design in polished cast stainless steel.
Clamdigger is a bronze sculpture by Willem de Kooning. It may have been inspired by "the men who dug for clams along the beaches" near his home in East Hampton, New York. It has been described as one of his "extraordinarily tactile figurative sculptures" that "seemed pulled from the primordial ooze," and "as part man, part creature of the mud and the shallows."
The Modern Art Foundry is an historic foundry in Astoria, Queens, New York, founded in 1932 by John Spring. His descendants continue to operate the business in what used to be the carriage house of the Steinway Mansion.
Modern sculpture is generally considered to have begun with the work of Auguste Rodin, who is seen as the progenitor of modern sculpture. While Rodin did not set out to rebel against the past, he created a new way of building his works. He "dissolved the hard outline of contemporary Neo-Greek academicism, and thereby created a vital synthesis of opacity and transparency, volume and void". Along with a few other artists in the late 19th century who experimented with new artistic visions in sculpture like Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin, Rodin invented a radical new approach in the creation of sculpture. Modern sculpture, along with all modern art, "arose as part of Western society's attempt to come to terms with the urban, industrial and secular society that emerged during the nineteenth century".
King and Queen is a bronze sculpture by Henry Moore, designed in 1952. It depicts two figures, one male and one female, seated beside each other on a bench, both facing slightly to the left. It is Moore's only sculpture depicting a single pair of adult figures. Moore's records suggest it was originally known as Two Seated Figures.
Physical Energy is a bronze equestrian statue by the English artist George Frederic Watts. Watts was principally a painter, but also worked on sculptures from the 1870s. Physical Energy was first cast in 1902, two years before his death, and was intended to be Watts's memorial to "unknown worth". Watts said it was a symbol of "that restless physical impulse to seek the still unachieved in the domain of material things". The original plaster maquette is at the Watts Gallery, and there are four full-size bronze casts: one in London, one in Cape Town, one in Harare and one soon to be sited at Watts Gallery - Artists' Village in Compton, Surrey. Other smaller bronze casts were also made after Watts's death.
Charles Bregler was an American portrait painter and sculptor, and a student of artist Thomas Eakins. Bregler wrote about Eakins's teaching methods, and amassed a large collection of his minor works, memorabilia and papers. Following Bregler's death, his widow safeguarded the Eakins collection for decades before selling it to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.
Standing Figure: Knife Edge is a bronze sculpture by the English artist Henry Moore. It was cast in two full-size versions: Standing Figure: Knife Edge in 1961, and a larger Large Standing Figure: Knife Edge in 1976. The sculpture also is sometimes known as Standing Figure (Bone) or Winged Figure.
Floating Figure is a 1927 sculpture by Gaston Lachaise.
Action in Chains is a 1905 bronze sculpture by Aristide Maillol. The original called Monument to Blanqui was commissioned by Louis Auguste Blanqui, and resides at the Puget-Théniers, for which it was originally commissioned.
Iris, Messenger of the Gods is a bronze sculpture by Auguste Rodin. A plaster model, created between 1891 and 1894, was cast in bronze by Fonderie Rudier at various times from about 1895. Iris is depicted with her right hand clasping her right foot and her naked body posed provocatively with her legs spread wide, displaying her genitalia.
Isabel Dutaud Nagle Lachaise (1872–1957) was an American-born, amateur poet, and wife of sculptor Gaston Lachaise active in the early 20th century. Isabel Lachaise was his muse, model, and primary inspiration for many of his sculptures and drawings.
