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Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture Alexander Sturgis

Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture By Alexander Sturgis

Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture by Alexander Sturgis


$21.49
Condition - Very Good
Only 2 left

Summary

This stimulating book, published to coincide with an exhibition at the Holburne Museum, explores the peculiar power of the sculpted portrait and where that power comes from.

Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture Summary

Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture by Alexander Sturgis

From the monuments of the ancient world to the modern waxwork museum, the sculpted portrait represents and makes present the living and the dead. Today, the art form remains the victim of its 19th-century heyday: the self-confidence, if not self-regard, of an age that populated our city streets and squares with countless monuments to statesmen, soldiers, industrialists and philanthropists whose deeds have long since slipped from popular memory, has rendered the very act of such monumental commemoration suspect. In town halls and public buildings, ranks of bewhiskered worthies punctuate corridors and halls, but seldom demand, still less receive, more than a passing glance. The very ubiquity and apparent sameness of the portrait bust and public monument has, with a few notable exceptions, made them all but invisible. However, the fact that the run-of-the-mill portrait bust can seem the least vital of all art forms risks blinding us to the compelling and, at times, troubling potency of the sculpted portrait. This short book, and the Holburne Museum exhibition it accompanies, opens our eyes to the virtues, power and peculiarities of the portrait sculpture, while at the same time drawing attention to the surprising fact that many of the most celebrated works by a generation of artists that emerged in the 1990s - including Jeff Koons, Ron Mueck and Marc Quinn, each discussed herein - are responses to, or exercised in, this, on the face of it, curiously overlooked genre.

Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture Reviews

'An excellent book' Laura Cumming, The Guardian

About Alexander Sturgis

Alexander Sturgis is Director of the Holburne Museum in Bath and was previously a curator at the National Gallery in London. Portraiture has been one of his abiding interests and the subject of a number of books he has written and exhibitions he has curated including 'Faces' (National Gallery, 1998) and 'Rebels and Martyrs: the Image of the Artist in the Nineteenth Century' (NG 2005). He lives outside Bath with his wife Anna and their three children.

Table of Contents

Introduction A sense of life Likeness and abstraction Ideal and real The Greek and Roman portrait Making faces Colour and its absence Death masks, life cast Death and the portrait Reproducing the portrait Context and scale Sculpture and the portrait

Additional information

GOR004338145
9781851496853
1851496858
Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture by Alexander Sturgis
Used - Very Good
Hardback
ACC Art Books
20120425
96
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
This is a used book - there is no escaping the fact it has been read by someone else and it will show signs of wear and previous use. Overall we expect it to be in very good condition, but if you are not entirely satisfied please get in touch with us

Customer Reviews - Presence: The Art of Portrait Sculpture