sculptor

This exhibition catalog explores the 2010 monumental work Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, created by internationally acclaimed contemporary Chinese artist and social activist Ai Weiwei. The work is a reimagining of a Qing dynasty zodiac water-clock system at the Old Summer Palace near Beijing, which was looted in 1850 during the Second Opium War. Ai reinterpreted the original fountainheads in a gold series and a bronze series, as his first monumental public art installation.

One of the best-known artists of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet, and playwright who spent most of his adult life in France. Picasso is often remembered for his cubist paintings, but he continued to experiment with new styles and materials throughout his life. During the 1950s and 1960s, Picasso commissioned Francois Hugo, great-grandson of French writer Victor Hugo, to execute a series of plates, dishes, and medallions in gold and silver. The plates were modeled after Picasso’s original ceramics designs.

"The skull is out of this world, celestial almost. I tend to see it as a glorious intense victory over death," writes art historian Rudi Fuchs in this creative guide to the making of British artist Damien Hirst’s sculpture For the Love of God, a platinum cast of an 18th-century skull encrusted with 8,601 flawless diamonds and produced at a cost of £14 million. The catalog is a companion publication to the 2007 exhibition “Damien Hirst: Beyond Belief,” at London’s White Cube, where the skull made its debut.

Georges Braque was a major 20th-century French painter, sculptor, draughtsman, and printmaker. At the age of 79, Braque turned his attention to jewelry. He teamed up with master jeweler Baron Heger de Löwenfeld to turn 110 gouache maquettes into intricately textured gold sculptures inlaid with precious stones. The collection, inspired by Greek mythology, incorporates themes of flight and metamorphosis. The two artists worked so closely together that Braque referred to De Löwenfeld as the “continuation of my hand.”

The “objects” of American artist Man Ray’s affection were small, limited-edition sculptures.

Although black—the color that contains all colors—has been American sculptor Louise Nevelson’s signature color, the artist began incorporating white and gold into her work in the 1960s. This announcement for an exhibition of sculptures by Nevelson at The Pace Gallery, New York, October 23-November 28, 1992, reflects her limited palette. Reproductions of her assemblage sculptures are presented in three die-cut printed pop-ups, printed in silver and gold. Nevelson herself is pictured in a silver-printed portrait on the front cover. The entire elegant presentation is ribbon-tied.

Max Ernst was one of the most prolific and original artists of the 20th century. After marrying American artist Dorothea Tanning in 1946, the couple moved to Sedona, Arizona where they lived until 1953. It was in Sedona that Ernst completed his monumental masterpiece Capricorn. Originally constructed in cement from castings of milk bottles, automobile springs, and other cast offs, the free-standing sculpture was situated opposite the house Ernst built by hand on Brewer Road.