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1-1-1984 Sculptors' Drawings 1910-1980, Selections from the Permanent Collection Whitney Museum of American Art Whitney Museum of American Art Whitney Museum of American Art Whitney Museum of American Art

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Recommended Citation Whitney Museum of American Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, "Sculptors' Drawings 1910-1980, Selections from the Permanent Collection Whitney Museum of American Art" (1984). Frost Art Museum Catalogs. 6. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/frostcatalogs/6

This work is brought to you for free and open access by the Frost Art Museum at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Frost Art Museum Catalogs by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Selections 338

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Whitney Museum of American Art Exhibition Itinerary

Visual Arts Gallery, Florida International University, Miami

Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, Colorado

Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, Texas

Philbrook Art Center, Tulsa, Oklahoma

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Christo Copyright © 1984 Museum of Running Fence, Project Whitney for Sonoma County and American Art Marin County, State of 945 Madison Avenue California, 1976 New York, New York Collage (pastel, charcoal, 10021 engineering data, cloth, and tape) on paper, Design ver 22 x 28 inches Homans / Salsgi Purchase, with funds Photographs from the Paul Rewald Geoffrey Clements

Memorial Fund 77 .20 Paul Cummings Adjunct Curator, Drawings

Sculptors'Drawings 1910-1980

The appreciation of sculptors' drawings has of expression-the emergence of an image recently increased with the growing recog­ from the imagination. The traditional em­ nition of the accomplishment, diversity, ployment of pen and ink or charcoal and and charm of these works. Such drawings pencil in the earIy decades of this century were often considered as mere sketches or precluded color. Black-and-white media are as steps toward three-dimensional expres­ used to clarify the formal aspects in a sion, but they are in fact as provocative drawing. Their presence indicates a and rewarding as those by painters and rigorous classicizing, whether in figurative other artists. Most of these drawings are or in abstract motifs. By mid-century, this S P fully rendered pages, completely resolved monochromatic tradition was challenged L,., works of art in themselves, although some by several sculptors who received early may serve as studies for specific sculp­ training as these were painters. Among w tures, earth works, installations, or even David Smith, Burgoyne Diller, Alexander paintings. Calder, Alfonso Ossorio, Claes Oldenburg, and Christo. In the tradition of mono­ The sculptor's attitudes toward the act chromatic delineation, the image was of and the use of drawing have developed often placed on the page with little or no markedly during the decades examined in suggestion of light, indication of scale, or this review. All drawing is concerned with reference to background. Scale resided in the enhancement of skill and with clarity Elie Nadelman

Head of a Woman with Hat, c. 1923-25 Graphite on tracing vellum, 16! x IO� inches Purchase, with funds from The Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Vivian Horan, The List Purchase Fund, the Neysa McMein Purchase Award, Mr. and Mrs. William A. Marsteller, the Richard and Dorothy Rodgers Fund, and the Drawing Committee 83.34

the artist's mind, with the drawing func­ later refinements of Minimal art, which, tioning as a referential annotation of pose, by the time of its emergence, had elimi­ configuration, or view. In drawings of the nated all human referents for an imagery figure, our experience in life suggests scale regimented by geometric order. This can be in art. But with abstract drawings, there is observed in the Neo-plastic configurations no possibility for such personal references of Burgoyne Diller, the flat hard-edge bio­ to subject or scale. morphics of Isamu Noguchi, the ritualized gestures of Sol LeWitt, and the spatially The decorative implications in the balanced pure geometric abstraction of early drawings of Elie Nadelman, Reuben Ellsworth Kelly. These styles reduced the Nakian, or Louise Nevelson uphold an handwritten gesture of the freely drawn older tradition rather than strive to assimi­ line, relying instead on the conceptual late the thriving modern impulses already impulse and a certain rendering skill to so active in the first decades of this maintain the motivation which initially century. The linear refinements of Art provoked the drawing. Deco are apparent in these elegant formal figures. The elongated torsos presage the Concurrent with this rigid classicizing, the surreal impulse informed an ever­ widening segment of American art, al- Nancy Grossman Ibram Lassaw Untitled Drawing, 1970 Untitled, 1967 Lithograph crayon on Ink on paper, 13� x 16 coated paper, 40 x 26 inches inches Purchase, with funds from Gift of Evelyn and the Neysa McMein Purchase Leonard Lauder 78.80 Award 77.30

though the artists did not follow exactly Sculptors' drawings differ from those of the literary, political, and psychological other artists in several ways. Many exhibit orientation of European Surrealism. The a certain flatness of design in a vision that fecund nature of Surrealist thought freed often stresses pattern or plan, as in archi­ American artists from the constraints of tectural drawings. A kind of airless space is old master influence, of regionalism, and experienced even where tone is employed of geometric abstraction, while sanction­ to suggest plasticity. Shading does not ing the retention of an individual hand­ always function to differentiate planes, nor writing in a time of rapidly expanding does it always turn a given plane plas­ styles. This process is observed in the tically in space. Even where internal shad­ drawings that combine natural and me­ ing is used, it often results in a flat field of chanical forms into often disquieting im­ tone. The employment or the casual dis­ ages, such as those by Theodore Roszak, missal of light results in a pervasive still­ Herbert Ferber, Alfonso Ossorio and, later, ness in many of these drawings. The Richard Hunt. These transformed Sur­ effects are generally those of implied realist precepts stimulated artists' minds rather than described illumination. There and emotions without binding them to is little or no emphasis on light function- ordered, orthodox theories of the kind advanced by Andre Breton. Ellsworth Kelly Briar, 1963 Pencil on paper, 22� x 28i inches Purchase, with funds from the Neysa McMein Purchase Award 65.42

Alexander Calder

Four Black Dots, 1974

Gouache on paper, 29! x 43 inches Gift of the Howard and lean Lipman Foundation, Inc. 74.94

ing in a form-defining chiaroscuro. This sculptures. The control of the drawing frequently sourceless light evenly overlays materials, as in any art object, reveals the page and its design, an effect that may qualities of both skill and concept. If the be noted in sheets ranging from those of lines are weak and lack specificity in their Elie Nadelman and Alexander Calder to direction, color, texture, or manipulation, Ellsworth Kelly and Alan Saret. the drawing will gradually lose its appeal. If the concept is not clearly stated upon Most of these drawings are made with the cessation of work, the image will not traditional drawing materials. Sculptors appear as the holistic experience of a develop their images with a directness that reasoned or thoughtfully felt action. The remains even when they turn to three­ interweaving of skill and concept sustains dimensional expression. Collage, an ad­ the life of the drawing whether its style is ditive or a constructive process, is used in currently fashionable or not. It is that many of the drawings, including those by blend of imagination, insight, skill, and Lucas Samaras, Michael Heizer, Christo, experience which forges an art charged and Ellsworth Kelly. In each instance, the with the necessary vitality for longevity. diverse qualities of touch in the drawing are then aggrandized in the constructed Burgoyne Diller Claes Oldenburg Second Theme, 1938 Proposal for a Cathedral Pencil and crayon on in the Form of a Colossal paper, I2! x 12� inches Faucet, Lake Union, Purchase, with funds Seattle, 1972 from The List Purchase Watercolor, graphite, and Fund 79.5 colored pencil on paper, 29 x 22� inches Gift of Knoll Interna­ tional and pur;chase 80.35

Until the late I930S color was used tinued to paint throughout his life, proba­ cautiously in American drawings, es­ bly employed a palette of the greatest pecially by sculptors. It was employed coloristic magnitude. George Segal uses occasionally to tone an area with wash or broadly applied pastel on colored paper in to define a background. Its prominence has his asymmetrical compositions. Claes increased from the I940S to the present so Oldenburg's spatial differentiations are that it is now used unquestioningly by emphasized by a lavish use of luminous nearly everyone. Burgoyne Diller used watercolor. This is also a favored medium color to enrich the range of tonal values of H.C. Westermann and William T. Wiley, and to specify the spatial relationships of a master at the closely controlled, layered the different planes in his compositions. application of this refulgent material. His work is an example of how the Robert Arneson employs a broad spectrum American artist transformed Mondrian's of crayons, colored pencils, gouache, and Neo-plastic concepts. Calder often used other materials in a bold manner that color as a background wash upon which he produces the dense textured surfaces of his drew either his nature-inspired shapes or ongoing series of dramatic revelatory self­ the Mir6esque geometric forms which also portraits. Color aggrandizes the exuberant appear in his sculpture. Of all twentieth­ variety of his lines while the spatial open- century sculptors, David Smith, who con- Robert Indiana The Great American Dream: New York, 1966 Colored crayon and frotage on paper, 39! x 26 inches Gift of Norman Dubrow 77·98

Robert Smithson Mud Flow, 1969 Crayon and felt-tip pen on paper, n! x 23� inches Gift of Norman Dubrow

77·99

ness of the design stresses the mottled The drawn line inevitably reveals the surface activity, thereby enriching the ex­ artist's personality, intellectual ambitions, perience of his statement. In comparing dexterity, and the emotional infusion the different personalities exemplified in which animates the image. We respond to the drawn line, we begin to subtly estab­ the artist's suggestions through the ap­

- lish rules of skill and quality. These deci . prehension of lines-the speed of their sions, when reinforced by experience, application, their textures, colors, length, become the touchstones of critical dif­ and other graphic qualities. Sculptors' ferentiation. Skill is acceptable only when drawings, through their vivacity and the it carries the message without being an spareness of their stylistic conventions, overt display for its own sake. often generate unparalleled accessibility. These sheets remain the source of many, New ways of drawing often seem unre­ yet to be discovered, insights into the fined, aggressive, or crude, but convey working mind of the artist. The recurring novel ideas and feelings through their rewards of enjoyment and edification are ability to irritate and question the norms there for the discriminating viewer. against which they are judged. If, in time, these new works become accepted, the general standards are modified to include the qualities of their statement. Works in the Exhibition

Dimensions are in Carl Andre (b. 1935) Leonard Baskin (b. 1922) Alexander Calder inches, height preceding Letter to Doug Lawder, Tormented Man, 1956 (1898-1976) width, and refer to sheet 1967 Ink on paper, 39i x 26i Composition, 1953 size, unless noted as sight Felt-tip pen on paper, Purchase, with funds Watercolor on paper, (measured within the 10! x I2i from the Living Arts 28ix 4d frame or mat opening). Gift of Benjamin Foundation Fund Gift of Mrs. Milton The accession number of Sonnenberg 78.42 57·52 Weill 61.15 a work refers to the year Robert Four Black Dots, 1974 of acquisition and, after a Arneson (b. 1930) Mel Bochner (b. 1940) Gouache on paper, decimal point, to the se­ Frontal, 1980 Intransitive Five 29!x 43 quence of its addition to Gouache, acrylic, conte, (The mo), 1975 Gift of the Howard and the Permanent Collection and mixed media on Gouache on rag paper, x Jean Lipman Founda­ during that year. For ex­ paper, 4d 29§ lOX 14 Inc. Gift of M. tion, 74.94 ample, 77.3 means the Nancy O'Boyle Gift through the Creative work was the third work in honor of Flora Miller Artists Public Service Christo (b. 1935) acquired in 1977. Prom­ Irving 80.21 Program 77.79 Running Fence, Project ised gifts are noted with Richard for Sonoma County the letter P and the order Artschwager Richard Boyce (b. 1920) and Marin County, of the two figures is (b. 1924) Aurorc, I, 1961 State of California, reversed. Door, Mirror, Table, Bas­ Red chalk on paper, ket, Rug, Window D, 15iXI2i 1976 1975 Gift of the Sumner Foun­ Collage (pastel, charcoal, Ink on paper, 26i x 30 dation for the Arts, Inc. engineering data, cloth, and on Purchase, with funds 62.32 tape) paper, from the Burroughs 22X28 Wellcome Purchase Purchase, with funds from the Paul Rewald Fund 84.1 Memorial Fund 77 .20 Burgoyne Diller Duayne Hatchett Ellsworth Kelly (b. 1923) Alexander Liberman (1906-1965) (b. 1925) Briar, 1963 (b. 1912) Second Theme, 1938 Untitled, 1968 Pencil on paper, 22i x 28i Terra Cotta Circle, 1963 Pencil and crayon on Pen and ink on paper, Purchase, with funds Watercolor and chalk on paper, I2i x I 2� 13� x lOt from the Neysa paper, 30 x 22t

Purchase, with funds Gift of Claude and McMein Purchase Gift of Eric Green 75 . I 6 from The List Purchase Lucienne Bloch 75.46 Award 65.42 Fund Seymour Lipton (b. 1903) 79.5 Black Triangle with Michael Heizer (b. 1944) Untitled, 1962 White, 1977 Herbert Ferber (b. 1906) Untitled, 1969 Crayon on paper, II x 8! Collage and ink on paper, Untitled, 1950 Photograph, pencil, and Gift of the artist 77 .60 3Iix34t Ink on paper, 18� x 2d watercolor on paper, Gift of Philip Morris Purchase, with funds 39 x30 Robert Morris (b. 1931) ted 100 from Joel and Anne Gift of Norman Dubrow Incorpora 78. Drawing for Earth Ehrenkranz 83.20 80.26.1 Project, 1969 Gabriel Kohn (1910-1975) Colored inks and water­ Untitled, 1963 Mary Frank (b. 1933) Richard Hunt (b. 1935) color on paper, Charcoal and ink with Untitled (Reclining Nude Untitled, 1982 zoj x 29! collage on cardboard, in Landscape), 1965 Craypas on paper, 23 x 29 Gift of Norman Dubrow zoj x 30 Ink on paper, 17� x 23i Purchase, with funds 77·100 with funds Gift of Susan and David from Richard Brown Purchase, from the Workman 71.175 Baker and Mr. and Mrs: Drawing Elie Nadelman Committee William A. Marsteller 84.3 (1882-1946) Gertrude Greene 83.21 Head of a Woman with Gaston Lachaise (1904-1956) Hat, c. 1923-25 (1882-1935) Untitled I, 1933 Robert Indiana (b. 1928) Graphite on tracing Seated Nude, 1932-35 Graphite on paper, The Great American vellum, 16!X 1O� Pencil on paper, 23� x 18 13i x ro] Dream: New York, Purchase, with funds Purchase 38.45 Purchase, with funds 1966 from The Lily from Martin and Colored crayon and Auchincloss Founda­ Ibram Lassaw (b. 1913) Agneta Gruss 8 1.5 frottage on paper, tion' Vivian Horan, The Untitled, 1967 39ix 26 List Purchase Fund, the Ink on x 16 Chaim paper, 13i Gross (b. 1904) Gift of Norman Dubrow Neysa McMein Pur­ Purchase, with funds The Unicyclist, 1938 77·98 chase Award, Mr. and from the Neysa Graphite on paper, Mrs. William A. McMein Purchase 24Hx ni Robert Irwin (b. 1928) Marsteller, the Richard Award 77.30 Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Scrim Veil-Black and Dorothy Rodgers Benjamin Weiss 78.36 Rectangle-Natural and the Barry Le Va (b. 1941) Fund, Drawing 1978 Light, U Committee 83.34 Grossman Blowpiece, 1968-69 Nancy Ink on paper, 30 x 40 Crayon, ink, and mixed (b. 1940) Gift of the artist 78.56 Standing Figure Draped, media on paper, Untitled Drawing, 1970 c. 1910 x 18 23i (sight) x Lithograph crayon on Donald Judd (b. 1928) Ink on paper, 15� 9i Gift of Norman Dubrow coated paper, 40 x 26 Stainless Steel, Blue Purchase, with funds 80.26.2 from the Richard and Gift of Evelyn and Recessed, 1973 Fund Leonard Lauder 78.80 Pencil on paper, 30 x 22 Dorothy Rodgers Sol LeWitt (b. 1928) Gift of Mrs. Agnes 76.1 All Crossing Combina­ Saalfield 78.21 tions of Arcs, Straight Reuben Nakian (b. 1897) Lines, Not-Straight Bull Crouching, c. 192 I Lines, and Broken Crayon on paper, 8 x I2t Lines, 1973 Gift of Gertrude Vander- Ink and on graphite paper, bilt Whitney 31.562 191 x 191 Gift of Norman Dubrow 80.26·3 Bruce Nauman (b. 1941) Robert Rohm (b. 1934) George Segal (b. 1924) Keith Sonnier (b. 1941) Green Corridor looking Untitled, 1975 Untitled, 1964 BA-O-BA, 1969 out on Sky etJ Ocean at Graphite on paper, Pastel on colored con­ Colored inks on graph La Iolla, 1971 19i x 26! struction paper, 18 x 12 paper, 8i x I I Pencil and pastel on Gift of Dr. Marilynn and Purchase, with funds Gift of Norman Dubrow paper, 23 x 29 IvanC.Karp 75.50 from the Neysa 78·95 Gift of Norman Dubrow McMein Purchase 77·102 Theodore Roszak Award 65.47 Richard Tuttle (b. 1941) (1907-1981) Dane Grey, 1973 Louise Nevelson (b. 1899) Study for Raven, 1946 Joel Shapiro {b. 1941) Ink and pencil on paper, Untitled, 1930 Ink and wash on paper, Untitled, 1982 14x II Pencil on paper, I Ii x 10i 4l�x6H Charcoal, gouache, and Purchase, with funds Gift of the artist 69.225 Gift of Mrs. Theodore graphite on paper, from the Albert A. List Roszak 79.8 18i x I2i (irregular) Fund 74.19 Isamu Noguchi (b. 1904) Gift of the artist 82.25. I Study for Invocation Work Sheets for Sculp­ III, H.C. Westermann 1952 Untitled, 1983 ture, 1945 (1922-1981) India ink and colored ink Gouache and on Pencil on graph paper graphite The Amazon, 1978 on paper, 92� x 42k paper, 22i x 30 with cutouts, 17 x 22 Watercolor on Green Gift of the estate of with funds , Purchase, Gift of the Howard and paper, 30i x 22i Theodore Roszak from the Jean Lipman Founda­ Drawing Gift of the Lauder Foun­ 83·33·II Committee tion, Inc. 74-46 84.20 dation-Drawing Fund 78.101 Lucas Samaras David Smith Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929) (b. 1936) (1906-1965) Untitled (Zig-zags to Untitled, c. 1937-38 Bicycle on Ground, 1959 William T. Wiley (b. 1937) Center), 1961 Ink, pastel, and wash on Crayon on pape�, 12 x Ili Nothing Conforms, 1978 Ink on paper, II x 8! paper, 17 x 22 Gift of the Lauder Foun- Watercolor on paper, yoth Anniversary Gift of Gift of Joel and Anne dation-Drawing Fund 29! x 22! the artist 80.24.4 Ehrenkranz 79.46 76.31 Neysa McMein Purchase Untitled, 1974 1951 Award and purchase Proposal for a Cathedral Untitled, Pastel on paper, 13 x 10 Black ink and 79.25 in the Form of a pink, Gift of and tem­ Colossal Faucet, Lake 50th Anniversary brown, green William Zorach the artist 80.24.2 pera on paper, x Union, Seattle, 1972 I9� 25i (1887-1966) and Promised yoth Anniver- Watercolor, graphite, Large Drawing #39, 1966 Nevada Falls, Yosemite sary Gift of an anony­ colored pencil on paper, Colored pencil and graph­ mous Valley, 1920 x donor P.7.79 29 22i ite on 1M x paper, 14 Pencil on paper, I 8� x I d Gift of Knoll Interna - Gift of Howard and Jean Untitled, 1962 Anonymous gift 59.40 tional and purchase Lipman 80.37.2 Spray paint on paper, 80·35 27 x 39§ Alan Saret (b. 1944) Gift of the H. van Alfonso Ossorio (b. 1916) Ensoulmen t the of Ameringen Foundation Ecco, 1962 Golden Age Intention, 79·40 and Wax, watercolor, col­ 1970 lage on paper, 30� x 22l Pencil and colored pencil Robert Smithson Gift of the artist 69.155 on paper, 24 x 37i ( 1938-1973) Purchase, 74. I I Mud Flow, 1969 Jody Pinto (b. 1942) Crayon and felt-tip pen Skin Tent for a Backbone, on paper, III x 23i 1978 Gift of Norman Dubrow Watercolor, gouache, 77·99 graphite, and crayon on paper, 30 x 39i Promised gift of Norman Dubrow P. 1.8 I Theodore Roszak Study for Invocation III, I952 India ink and colored ink on paper, 92i x 42§ inches Gift of the estate of Theodore Roszak 83·33·II