NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER PRESENTS WORKS BY ITALIAN SCULPTOR MEDARDO ROSSO
4/3/2004 12:00:00 AM
Medardo Rosso: Second Impressions will be on view at the Nasher Sculpture Center from April 3 through June 20, 2004. This exhibition is the first major survey in the United States in 40 years devoted to the work of Medardo Rosso (1858–1928), whose revolutionary innovations played a key role in the birth of modern sculpture. Medardo Rosso: Second Impressions features 20 sculptures, including 6 works from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, and offers an intimate exploration of Rosso’s working process and innovations. The exhibition was organized by the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums. The Nasher Sculpture Center is the final venue for Medardo Rosso: Second Impressions, following exhibitions at Harvard’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum (July 19, - October 26, 2003) and the Saint Louis Art Museum, Saint Louis, Missouri (November 21, 2003 - February 15, 2004).
Medardo Rosso: Second Impressions will focus on multiple versions of five sculptures spanning Rosso’s mature career. The works are Aetas aurea (The Golden Age), 1886–87; Grande rieuse (Large Laughing Woman), 1891; Bambino ebreo (Jewish Boy), c. 1892–93; Bookmaker, c. 1894; and Ecce puer (Behold the Child), 1906. Each of the works will be represented by three or four distinct castings in wax, plaster, and bronze, showcasing Rosso’s pioneering experimentation with materials and casting techniques. Rosso was intimately involved in creating the various casts of these works at a time when such work was commonly left to foundry technicians.
Rosso’s extensive exploration of techniques and materials exemplifies how art was transformed on a broad scale during the late 19th century. Rosso replaced realistic detail with vigorous, sketchy modeling, and he varied media. Rather than cast his original clay models as bronzes to be carefully finished, Rosso arrested the lost-wax method of bronze casting in midcourse, saving the wax shells as finished works. This radical innovation, which elevated wax to the status of bronze, triggered a career-long exploration of sculptural production and reproduction. Rosso wrung endless variations from his original clay models, casting and recasting them in wax, plaster, and barely finished bronze, leaving the accidents and artifacts of the casting process visible in the final products. Through his experiments, similar to those of Auguste Rodin during the same period, Rosso expanded the conceptual and expressive possibilities of sculpture and influenced the works of such modern sculptors as Umberto Boccioni and Constantin Brancusi.
“With six sculptures by Medardo Rosso in the Nasher Collection, the Nasher Sculpture Center is an ideal venue for this important exhibition,” said Director Steven Nash. “Like the Picasso exhibition currently on view at the Nasher Sculpture Center, Medardo Rosso: Second Impressions is a very focused, important exhibition that draws from and complements works in the Nasher Sculpture Center.”
Innovative Techniques
Rosso’s output comprises fewer than 50 primary sculptures, all of which he created between 1881 and 1906. For the remaining 22 years of his career, Rosso devoted himself to recasting these primary sculptures, producing more than 400 variations in plaster, wax, and bronze. Rosso’s working process and experimentation can be studied in the variations of Bambino ebreo (Jewish Boy), c. 1892–93. Bambino ebreo served as a sort of business card for Rosso. He made many wax versions of it and gave them as gifts to patrons, critics, curators, and friends. The two wax versions in the exhibition reveal very different degrees of detail. The two bronze versions are even farther apart; one reveals Rosso’s almost painterly use of the whitish casting material, while the other is traditional in its finish and patina.
The exhibition will also include three versions of one of the largest busts Rosso ever made, Grande rieuse (Large Laughing Woman), 1891, demonstrating the variety he achieved by casting the same model in different ways. In the bronze version, Rosso took the unusual step of casting the plaster madreforma, or “mother mold,” as part of the finished work.
Medardo Rosso: Second Impressions is organized by Harry Cooper, curator of modern art for Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum, with Sharon Hecker, an independent scholar based in Milan. Dr. Cooper will present a lecture, ”Medardo Rosso and The Flesh of Others,” at the Nasher Sculpture Center at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 15 as part of the One Object, One Hour lecture series.
The exhibition is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, with additional funding provided by Emily Rauh Pulitzer; Dr. Sheldon G. and Irma Gilgore; the José Soriano Fund; Jessie Lie Farber in honor of James Cuno; and Sydney J. Freedberg, Jr., in honor of Professor Sydney Freedberg, Sr. A fully illustrated catalogue developed by Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum and co-published with Yale University Press accompanies the exhibition. It includes essays by Harry Cooper; Sharon Hecker; Henry Lie, director of the Straus Center for Conservation at Harvard; and Derek Pullen, head of sculpture conservation at the Tate in London.
About Medardo Rosso (1858–1928)
Born in Turin, Italy in 1858, Rosso moved with his family to Milan when he was 12. After serving in the Italian military, he began studying painting and sculpture at the Brera Academy in Milan in 1882. Rosso’s artistic breakthrough came in 1883 when he made his first sculptures in wax. In 1889 he settled in Paris, where he developed a friendship with Auguste Rodin. Rosso exhibited his work widely in Europe and participated in the Exposition Universelle of 1889 in Paris. He also participated in Salons in Paris in 1904 and in London in 1906, where he completed his last sculpture, Ecce puer (Behold the Child).
About the Nasher Sculpture Center
The Nasher Sculpture Center, a new institution dedicated to the presentation of modern and contemporary sculpture, serves as a public home for the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, one of the foremost collections of twentieth-century sculpture in the world. The Center is distinguished by a critically acclaimed facility designed by Renzo Piano, specifically conceived for the indoor and outdoor display of sculpture. The Nasher Sculpture Center is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, $5 for students, and free for members and children under 12. The price of admission includes an audio tour.
The Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection
Developed over more than five decades, Raymond Nasher and his late wife Patsy began collecting art in 1950 and together formed one of the finest collections of 20th-century sculpture in the world. The Nasher Collection includes masterpieces by Calder, de Kooning, di Suvero, Giacometti, Hepworth, Kelly, Matisse, Miró, Moore, Picasso, Rodin, and Serra, among many others, and continues to grow and evolve.