Acknowledged as one of the major sculptors and avant-garde artists of the twentieth century, Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957) also remained one of the most elusive. His mysterious nature was not only due to his upbringing in Romania - which, at the time, was still regarded by much of Europe as a backward country haunted by vampires and werewolves - but also because Brancusi was aware that myth and an 'aura of otherness' appealed to the public. This self-mythology is embodied in his white atelier in Montparnasse, Paris. In "Constantin Brancusi", Sanda Miller looks beyond the mythology of the artist to show us Constantin the Romanian student, as well as Brancusi the celebrated artist. Using new material, including private correspondence from Brancusi's archive in Paris, works from Romania, and Brancusi's own photos of his studio, the author weaves together and interprets a wealth of information, bringing to life his early years in Romania, his move to Paris and his years at his studio. She relates how his art scandalized the Paris salon, yet also explores how his work connects with the folk art of his homeland. She also provides colourful evocations of Brancusi's relationships with colleagues, dealers, friends and lovers. An innovative reassessment of Brancusi's life and work, Sanda Miller's perceptive book allows Brancusi to take his rightful place among the most important of the intellectual personalities who shaped twentieth-century modernism.

This comprehensive sourcebook is destined to become a lasting and definitive resource on the art and aesthetic philosophy of the American artist David Smith (1906-1965). A pioneer of twentieth-century modernism, Smith was renowned for the expansive formal and conceptual ambitions of his broadly diverse and inventive welded-steel abstractions. His groundbreaking achievements drew freely on cubism, surrealism, and constructivism, profoundly influencing later movements such as minimalism and environmental art. By radically challenging older conventions of monolithic figuration and refuting arbitrary distinctions between painters and sculptors, Smith asserted sculpture's equal role in advancing modern art. A compilation of Smith's poems, sketchbook notes, essays, lectures, letters to the editor, reviews, and interviews, these previously unpublished texts underscore the varied ways in which his writing functioned as a means to examine and articulate his private identity and to promote the social ideals that made him a key participant in contemporary discourses surrounding modernism, art and politics, and sculptural aesthetics. All the documents in David Smith: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Interviews have been newly corrected against the original manuscripts, typescripts, and audiotapes. Each text in this collection is annotated with historical and contextual information that reflects Smith's own process of continually reviewing and revising his writings in response to his evolving aspirations as a visual artist.

Harry Bertoia, Sculptor is devoted to the life and work of a twentieth-century Italian-born American artist whose important commissions are located in twenty-five American cities from New York to Seattle and from Minneapolis to Miami. It traces the development of Bertoia's versatile career from his youth in Detroit, beginning with drawings, paintings, and monoprints, then jewelry and furniture designs, to his abstract sculptures in metals, many of architectural proportions. The book includes a biography of the man and detailed descriptions of his methods of working. Many major sculptures and some minor ones are described in detail. They are critically analyzed for their aesthetic components and the ideas they were intended to express. A large number of photographs supplements the descriptions and analyses. Two appendixes give chronologies of the artist's life and of his architectural commissions, the latter virtually a catalog of Bertoia's major works. Based on several extensive interviews with the artist, as well as on research into his earlier writings, the book includes Bertoia's thoughts on aesthetics and various phases of the art processes he uses. His work is categorized into four major aesthetic explorations that interested him most of his life.

Jean Doyle, A Portrait is a glorious tribute to one of South Africa’s quietest artists. This part-biography, part critique explores how Jean has formed, shaped, forged and polished her career. Frequently told through her private sculpture notes, it goes beneath the layers of bronze and clay to the inspirational heart of her work, tracing her artistic journey. It celebrates the freshness, simplicity, intelligence, unmistakable sense of humour and, strikingly, the modest humility with which Jean Doyle has emerged as one of the greatest story-telling South African artists of our time.

Marking a celebratory exhibition in 2017 at Gothic House, their family home in Charlbury, Oxfordshire, this book brings together highlights of sculptures and paintings by Briony and Andrew Lawson. Over the last half-century, these two artists have been inspired by their surroundings to produce a dynamic and varied body of work. Their shared passion for the North Devon landscape is infused throughout much of their work. Briony Lawson has been sculpting in wood, stone and clay since her days as a student at City & Guilds Art School in London. Her prolific body of work draws on natural and organic subjects, often pared down to the most simple and elemental forms. Known worldwide as a garden photographer, Andrew Lawson was trained as a painter. His painting has always informed the eye behind the camera. This book surveys Andrew's work from his early school posters and from his student days at Oxford, to his subsequent paintings that draw inspiration from his favoured woodland and sea landscapes of Devon.

"Men like Benvenuto, unique in their profession, need not be subject to the law."
--Pope Paul III on learning that Cellini had murdered a fellow artist
Benvenuto Cellini was beloved in Renaissance Florence. A renowned sculptor and goldsmith whose works include the famous salt-cellar made for the King of France, and the statue of Perseus with the head of the Medusa, Cellini's life was as vivid and enthralling as his creations. A man of action as well as an artist, he took part in the Sack of Rome in 1527; he was temperamental, passionate, and conceited, capable of committing criminal acts ranging from brawling and sodomy to theft and murder. He numbered among his patrons popes and kings and members of the Medici family, and his autobiography is a fascinating account of sixteenth-century Italy and France written with all the verve of a novel.
This new translation, which captures the freshness and vivacity of the original, is based on the latest critical edition. It examines in detail the central event in Cellini's narrative, the casting of the statue of Perseus.
About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

This book explores how the different forms of government and political factions in the Italian city states c. 1240-1400 used sculpture in different ways to express their ideals and achievements. It examines favoured themes in the republics (Florence, Siena, Venice et al), in the kingdom of Naples and at the courts of the signori (Milan, Verona and Arezzo). It demonstrates how republican art tended to eschew the celebration of statesmen in favour of the state. Deprived of a political figurehead republican regimes resorted to symbolism and allegory to express the city's identity and ideals. As in their chronicles, their art celebrates the ancient origins of the city and its founders, its famous men and patron saints, and its qualities of charity, justice and prosperity. It promotes the virtues of work and chooses its 'heroes' from among the intellectual and military classes while restricting the freedom of expression of the rich and the politically powerful. Quite different was the sculpture of the signori. It formed part of a ruler cult. The lord's image, heraldry and inscribed name were ubiquitous throughout the city. Magnificence of scale and decoration in his buildings and his art were calculated signs of power to impress his subjects and to discourage opposition. His tomb imagery was often secular in content and emphasized the lord's achievements: his military virtues and his conquest of land, his legitimacy as ruler, his patronage and beneficence towards his people, and the superiority of seigneurial to communal rule. Different again was the court sculpture of the Angevin monarchs in Naples. In the numerous and strikingly original tombs of members of the royal house the Angevins emphasized their piety and virtue as a way of ingratiating themselves with their people and their allies. They focused on the saints in their extended family and their distinctive relations with the church and the royal house of France. King Robert was particularly active as a propagandist. His sense of royal power was distinctive. Committedly non-militaristic as a ruler he emphasized instead his piety, wisdom and learning, and his affection for his people and all of these themes were once discernible in his colossal monument. Additionally his tomb was employed by his heirs to address concerns over the succession. The civic sculpture of the republics, then, was motivated by the ideal of 'the common good' and the attempt to foster community spirit; that of the signori by realpolitik and a sense of anxiety about their precarious rule. Republicans and signori saw their forms of government in opposition to each other and their art reflects this. Angevin sculpture was quite distinct. An eclectic mix of French, Tuscan and imperial influences its role was to burnish the image of the king and his family, to convey their values and ideals and, when needed, to make clear the monarch's position on issues that concerned the kingdom.