From “The New Sculpture” to Garden Statuary: the suppression of Abstract Expressionist sculpture

Journal of Art Historiography

Meghan Bissonnette¹ 

[1] Valdosta State University;

关键词: art criticism;    Clement Greenberg (1909-1994);    Abstract Expressionism;    art historiography;    Abstract Expressionist sculpture;    American sculpture;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

In the 1940s, David Smith, David Hare, Herbert Ferber, Ibram Lassaw, Seymour Lipton and Theodore Roszak were part of a new generation of sculptors working in New York who used welding and other direct-metal techniques to make abstract sculpture. In the 1950s, Abstract Expressionist sculpture was praised for its vitality and inventiveness, yet beginning in the 1960s these works gradually fell out of favour. The sole exception is David Smith, who has been upheld as the only sculptor of merit from this period. This study will contend that the suppression of Abstract Expressionist sculpture is largely due to Clement Greenberg and the lasting impact of his writings. Furthermore, his critique of the new sculpture has shaped subsequent assessments by Michael Leja, Kirk Varnedoe, and Edward Lucie-Smith. It has also contributed to the belief, still current today, that Abstract Expressionism is a movement of painters with no comparable counterparts in sculpture.

【 授权许可】

Unknown