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American Bronzes: From the Corcoran Gallery of Art:
This installation of more than thirty bronze sculptures from the Corcoran's collection of American art highlights an important aspect of the museum's holdings, one not often seen in such depth. Displayed as a group for the first time in many years, these casts offer a rare opportunity to examine the history of American bronze sculpture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Before the middle of the 19th century, Americans did not possess the technology for the process of bronze casting. Sculptors instead relied on European foundries, or had their works carved in marble (six excellent examples of American neoclassical marble sculpture are installed on the Corcoran's grand staircase.) With the development of specialized foundries and trained labor between 1850 and 1900, bronze casting developed rapidly, reflecting American's growing independence from European artistic prototypes and materials. Soon after, bronze eclipsed marble as the medium of choice.
By about 1900, these changes led to the immense popularity of bronze statuettes as affordable parlor and fountain decor. Naturalistic figures of people and animals, well suited to mass replication in the expressive and tactile medium of bronze, proliferated. Sculptures by artists like Bessie Potter Vonnoh and Frederic Remington, such as those on view here, were produced in large editions and sold by retailers such as Tiffany & Company as well as through the foundries and sculptors. In order to customize each cast, artists often experimented with patina, or surface coloration, altering the traditional black and brown to achieve innovative hues of red, yellow, gold, blue, and green.
Despite its rapid growth and remarkable success, the American fine art bronze casting industry was largely brought to an end during World War I. |