A LIVING TRADITION Modern Sculpture at the Meadows Museum Steven A. Nash
Introduction Thoughts of the Meadows Museum naturally turn first to its great collection of Spanish art and internationally acclaimed program of exhibitions, publications, and educational opportunities dedicated to the understanding and appreciation of Spanish contributions to visual culture. This focus has comprised the basic mission of the Meadows Museum since its dedication on April 3, 1965. Against this background, visitors, students, and art aficionados are sometimes surprised to learn that the Meadows also houses a highly significant collection of international modern sculpture. Most visitors, of course, stop to admire the giant metalmesh head by Jaume Plensa (b. 1955) at the front entrance to the museum or some of the other fine works by masters such as Henry Moore (1898–1986), Jacques Lipchitz (1891–1973), and Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929) that grace its outdoor plaza, and inside the museum they encounter impressive works such as Aristide Maillol’s (1861–1944) Three Nymphs made of lead and Auguste Rodin’s (1840–1917) marble Modern Muse while touring the galleries. But these episodic encounters do not necessarily add up to a clear impression of the scope and quality of the museum’s full sculpture collection. It is the purpose of this essay and the accompanying catalogue of individual works to shine a light on this collection by examining its beginnings and history
Aristide Maillol, The Three Nymphs (detail), 1930–38. Photograph by Laura Wilson.
13
of development and by presenting documentation and analysis of each sculpture, and in so doing, to bring to the collection the
A LIVING TRADITION Modern Sculpture at the Meadows Museum Steven A. Nash
Introduction Thoughts of the Meadows Museum naturally turn first to its great collection of Spanish art and internationally acclaimed program of exhibitions, publications, and educational opportunities dedicated to the understanding and appreciation of Spanish contributions to visual culture. This focus has comprised the basic mission of the Meadows Museum since its dedication on April 3, 1965. Against this background, visitors, students, and art aficionados are sometimes surprised to learn that the Meadows also houses a highly significant collection of international modern sculpture. Most visitors, of course, stop to admire the giant metalmesh head by Jaume Plensa (b. 1955) at the front entrance to the museum or some of the other fine works by masters such as Henry Moore (1898–1986), Jacques Lipchitz (1891–1973), and Claes Oldenburg (b. 1929) that grace its outdoor plaza, and inside the museum they encounter impressive works such as Aristide Maillol’s (1861–1944) Three Nymphs made of lead and Auguste Rodin’s (1840–1917) marble Modern Muse while touring the galleries. But these episodic encounters do not necessarily add up to a clear impression of the scope and quality of the museum’s full sculpture collection. It is the purpose of this essay and the accompanying catalogue of individual works to shine a light on this collection by examining its beginnings and history
Aristide Maillol, The Three Nymphs (detail), 1930–38. Photograph by Laura Wilson.
13
of development and by presenting documentation and analysis of each sculpture, and in so doing, to bring to the collection the
SANTIAGO CALATRAVA (Spanish, b. 1951)
2
Wave, 2002 Steel, bronze, nylon, and granite reflecting pool 79 ¼ x 816 x 312 in. (201 x 2072.6 x 792.5 cm) Gift of the Rosine Foundation Fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas through the generous vision of Mary Anne and Richard Cree, MM.02.01 Provenance: Commissioned from the artist specifically for Meadows Museum, Dallas, through a gift of Rosine Roundation Fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas, 1999; completed 2002.
Wave is one of Santiago Calatrava’s largest and most technically complex sculptures. Commissioned for installation in front of the new Meadows Museum inaugurated in 2001,
Fig. 25. Santiago Calatrava, Bodegas Ysios, Laguardia, Spain, 1998–2001. Photo by Gilles Messian.
it is twenty-six feet deep and sixty-eight feet wide and is operated by an electric motor and gears that move 129 individual metal beams in a rhythmic sequence of undulations or waves. These patterns are reflected in a rectangular pool of water in which the structure sits, creating an inverted image of the movements. All beams are six by six inches in section and twenty-six feet long. Made of steel coated in bronze, they weigh 441 pounds each and rock on a triangular fulcrum that runs the full length of the sculpture, spanning a distance of six feet as they rise and fall in syncopation. Calatrava intended that Wave be seen from above as well as frontally, and its position close to the front wall of the museum’s raised plaza makes this possible. Design development for a sculpture of this size and complexity was lengthy. A prototype exists in the form of a much smaller work very similar in composition dating from 1994.1 Calatrava visited the university campus early in 2000 to view the designated location for the commissioned work and on April 14, 2000, submitted a proposal illustrated
Literature and Exhibitions:
stretch of rolling ocean or sea, but his drawings also indicate that he had in mind the
with watercolor sketches of the sculpture and its site, noting that “After the site visits…
Kosme de Barañano et al., Santiago Calatrava: Sculptures and Drawings/Esculturas y Dibujos, exh. cat. Valencia: Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, 2001, p. 38.
curves of the human body—and also from the balancing act in his work between delicacy
I am of the conviction that in such a large pool, and in such a special situation, a very visible and dynamic object should be made.” More drawings followed and then formal 2
plans (see fig. 24).3
Alexander Tzonis, Santiago Calatrava: The Complete Works. New York: Rizzoli, 2004, p. 276 (detail).
A fundamental aspect of many of Calatrava’s buildings and sculptures, including Wave, is their additive structure. They are composites of individual, repeated units tightly Fig. 24. Santiago Calatrava, Untitled (Wave), 2001. Watercolor and graphite on paper, 13 3/4 x 23 1/2 in. (34.9 x 59.7 cm). Gift of the artist to the Meadows Museum, MM.2012.08. Photo by Michael Bodycomb.
regimented to form overarching spatial, often curving movements and are impressive both in their engineering and adventurous spirit. Part of this expressiveness comes from Calatrava’s use of forms abstracted from nature—the obvious analogue for Wave is a wide
Philip Jodidio, Santiago Calatrava: Complete Works, 1979–2007. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2007, pp. 430–37.
and strength, technology and art. In these ways Calatrava contributed to a twentiethcentury tradition of finely engineered kinetic sculptures that dates back to experiments by the Russian Constructivists and is widely embodied by the mobiles of Alexander Calder (1898–1976) and the wind-driven stainless steel sculptures of George Rickey (see cat. 20). A cross-pollination sometimes exists between Calatrava’s architecture and his sculptures, with ideas from one realm influencing the other, and such is certainly the
“Santiago Calatrava: The Making of Wave,” At the Meadows, Fall 2007, p. 7.
case with his kinetic wave sculptures. Wave patterns are a major part of his basic vocab-
Face and Form: Modern and Contemporary Sculpture at the Meadows Museum. Meadows Museum, Dallas, 2009–10.
For example, after the wave sculpture of 1994, the concept of an undulating motion of
ularies of form and appear in different contexts and guises, whether static or moving. large beams next appeared, albeit in stationary form, in the powerful roof design that Calatrava created for the winery of Bodegas Ysios in Laguardia, Northern Spain, on which he worked from 1998 to 2001 (fig. 25).4 Following the Meadows sculpture, similar wave patterns were seen as architectural components in other buildings including Calatrava’s Olympic Sports Complex in Athens from 2004, where the waves were turned on their sides to create a motorized screen.5 And the design of the Meadows Wave was repeated in 2005 in a smaller work measuring five meters in length.6
1 Private collection, Zurich. See Alexander Tzonis, Santiago Calatrava: Structures in Movement, exh. cat. (Dallas: Meadows Museum, 2001), p. 125. 2 This proposal is in the Meadows Museum’s archives. 3 Calatrava donated to the Meadows Museum a sketchbook of eighteen watercolor drawings for Wave (MM.2012.09.01-18) and one additional watercolor (MM.2012.08). Numerous other watercolors and formal plans are included in two bound portfolios prepared by Calatrava, photocopies of which are in the museum’s object files. 4 Tzonis (2004), pp. 322–25. 5 See Architectural Record, no. 5 (2005), p. 173. 6 Micol Forti, Santiago Calatrava: Le metamorfosi dello spazio, exh. cat. (Città del Vaticano: Braccio di Carlo Magno, 2013), cat. 95. The full dimensions are 33 1/2 x 196 7/8 x 102 3/8 in. (85 x 500 x 260 cm).
86
87
SANTIAGO CALATRAVA (Spanish, b. 1951)
2
Wave, 2002 Steel, bronze, nylon, and granite reflecting pool 79 ¼ x 816 x 312 in. (201 x 2072.6 x 792.5 cm) Gift of the Rosine Foundation Fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas through the generous vision of Mary Anne and Richard Cree, MM.02.01 Provenance: Commissioned from the artist specifically for Meadows Museum, Dallas, through a gift of Rosine Roundation Fund of the Communities Foundation of Texas, 1999; completed 2002.
Wave is one of Santiago Calatrava’s largest and most technically complex sculptures. Commissioned for installation in front of the new Meadows Museum inaugurated in 2001,
Fig. 25. Santiago Calatrava, Bodegas Ysios, Laguardia, Spain, 1998–2001. Photo by Gilles Messian.
it is twenty-six feet deep and sixty-eight feet wide and is operated by an electric motor and gears that move 129 individual metal beams in a rhythmic sequence of undulations or waves. These patterns are reflected in a rectangular pool of water in which the structure sits, creating an inverted image of the movements. All beams are six by six inches in section and twenty-six feet long. Made of steel coated in bronze, they weigh 441 pounds each and rock on a triangular fulcrum that runs the full length of the sculpture, spanning a distance of six feet as they rise and fall in syncopation. Calatrava intended that Wave be seen from above as well as frontally, and its position close to the front wall of the museum’s raised plaza makes this possible. Design development for a sculpture of this size and complexity was lengthy. A prototype exists in the form of a much smaller work very similar in composition dating from 1994.1 Calatrava visited the university campus early in 2000 to view the designated location for the commissioned work and on April 14, 2000, submitted a proposal illustrated
Literature and Exhibitions:
stretch of rolling ocean or sea, but his drawings also indicate that he had in mind the
with watercolor sketches of the sculpture and its site, noting that “After the site visits…
Kosme de Barañano et al., Santiago Calatrava: Sculptures and Drawings/Esculturas y Dibujos, exh. cat. Valencia: Institut Valencia d’Art Modern, 2001, p. 38.
curves of the human body—and also from the balancing act in his work between delicacy
I am of the conviction that in such a large pool, and in such a special situation, a very visible and dynamic object should be made.” More drawings followed and then formal 2
plans (see fig. 24).3
Alexander Tzonis, Santiago Calatrava: The Complete Works. New York: Rizzoli, 2004, p. 276 (detail).
A fundamental aspect of many of Calatrava’s buildings and sculptures, including Wave, is their additive structure. They are composites of individual, repeated units tightly Fig. 24. Santiago Calatrava, Untitled (Wave), 2001. Watercolor and graphite on paper, 13 3/4 x 23 1/2 in. (34.9 x 59.7 cm). Gift of the artist to the Meadows Museum, MM.2012.08. Photo by Michael Bodycomb.
regimented to form overarching spatial, often curving movements and are impressive both in their engineering and adventurous spirit. Part of this expressiveness comes from Calatrava’s use of forms abstracted from nature—the obvious analogue for Wave is a wide
Philip Jodidio, Santiago Calatrava: Complete Works, 1979–2007. Los Angeles: Taschen, 2007, pp. 430–37.
and strength, technology and art. In these ways Calatrava contributed to a twentiethcentury tradition of finely engineered kinetic sculptures that dates back to experiments by the Russian Constructivists and is widely embodied by the mobiles of Alexander Calder (1898–1976) and the wind-driven stainless steel sculptures of George Rickey (see cat. 20). A cross-pollination sometimes exists between Calatrava’s architecture and his sculptures, with ideas from one realm influencing the other, and such is certainly the
“Santiago Calatrava: The Making of Wave,” At the Meadows, Fall 2007, p. 7.
case with his kinetic wave sculptures. Wave patterns are a major part of his basic vocab-
Face and Form: Modern and Contemporary Sculpture at the Meadows Museum. Meadows Museum, Dallas, 2009–10.
For example, after the wave sculpture of 1994, the concept of an undulating motion of
ularies of form and appear in different contexts and guises, whether static or moving. large beams next appeared, albeit in stationary form, in the powerful roof design that Calatrava created for the winery of Bodegas Ysios in Laguardia, Northern Spain, on which he worked from 1998 to 2001 (fig. 25).4 Following the Meadows sculpture, similar wave patterns were seen as architectural components in other buildings including Calatrava’s Olympic Sports Complex in Athens from 2004, where the waves were turned on their sides to create a motorized screen.5 And the design of the Meadows Wave was repeated in 2005 in a smaller work measuring five meters in length.6
1 Private collection, Zurich. See Alexander Tzonis, Santiago Calatrava: Structures in Movement, exh. cat. (Dallas: Meadows Museum, 2001), p. 125. 2 This proposal is in the Meadows Museum’s archives. 3 Calatrava donated to the Meadows Museum a sketchbook of eighteen watercolor drawings for Wave (MM.2012.09.01-18) and one additional watercolor (MM.2012.08). Numerous other watercolors and formal plans are included in two bound portfolios prepared by Calatrava, photocopies of which are in the museum’s object files. 4 Tzonis (2004), pp. 322–25. 5 See Architectural Record, no. 5 (2005), p. 173. 6 Micol Forti, Santiago Calatrava: Le metamorfosi dello spazio, exh. cat. (Città del Vaticano: Braccio di Carlo Magno, 2013), cat. 95. The full dimensions are 33 1/2 x 196 7/8 x 102 3/8 in. (85 x 500 x 260 cm).
86
87
OCTAVIO MEDELLIN
JAMES SULLIVAN
(American, b. Mexico, 1907 (or 1908)–1999)
2
(American, b. 1952)
Untitled (Woman Holding a Deer), c. 1930–36
3
Between, 2001 Plaster, straw, steel, and pigment 27 x 12 x 16 in. (68.6 x 30.5 x 40.6 cm) Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Shirley Pollock, UAC.2009.01
Terracotta 17 x 5 ½ x 8 in. (43.2 x 14 x 20.3 cm) University Art Collection, UAC.1975.23
Literature and Exhibitions:
Provenance: Purchased through (Conduit Gallery, Dallas) by Mrs. Shirley Pollock [1928–2008], Dallas, 2002; bequest to University Art Collection at Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas, 2009.
First Annual Texas Crafts Exhibition. Dallas: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1949, cat. 4 (as Figure).
Literature and Exhibitions:
Face and Form: Modern and Contemporary Sculpture at the Meadows Museum. Meadows Museum, Dallas, 2009–10.
James W. Sullivan: Provisional Self, exh. cat. Dallas: Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, 2002, pp. 26–27 and 42. “New Acquisitions: The Shirley Pollock Gift,” At the Meadows, Fall 2009, p. 13.
Octavio Medellin was born in Mexico and moved with his family to San Antonio, Texas, in 1920. After art studies at the San Antonio
James Sullivan earned his BA in philosophy at Yale University and
School of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, he traveled widely in
an MFA in sculpture at California State University at Long Beach. He
Mexico, where he was greatly impressed by both contemporary and
teaches sculpture at SMU and has served as chair of the Division of
popular native art. Upon his return to the United States, he taught
Art. He is an accomplished draftsman and printmaker but is best
sculpture in San Antonio, then moved in 1938 to Denton, Texas,
known for his sculpture and his unique working process comprised
teaching first at North Texas State College and subsequently at
of modeling the human figure with straw compacted with plaster.
Southern Methodist University and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts.
In Between, as with many of his works, there is an evident
Eventually he opened in Dallas the Medellin School of Sculpture.
affiliation with the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti, whether in the
During the 1940s and 50s he participated in both regional and
emphasized verticality of his standing figures, their sense of isolation
national exhibitions and attained a significant reputation for sculp-
in a vast space, or their richly textured surfaces. In 2009, Sullivan
ture, ceramics, and stained glass treating religious, historical, and
noted about Between that, “The piece is based on a Giacometti
humanist themes in an archaizing realist style.
drawing of a tightrope walker, which I became interested in working
Medellin’s Untitled (Woman Holding a Deer) is a smaller version
into a figure. I was taken by the question of balance and hesitancy—
of a sculpture he made for the Majestic Building in San Antonio along
the figure [Between] seems to neither be moving forward nor back,
with a companion work, Man Holding Wheat. Its streamlined styliza-
but oscillating between the two.”1 In 2002 Sullivan made an etching
tions reflect strains of modernism and Art Deco current in the 1930s.
of the same figure, also titled Between.2
When the artist saw this work in storage at the Meadows Museum in 1997 he reported that he had made copies of the original version and 1 Email to the Meadows Museum, contained in the museum’s object file on Between.
its pendant and used them in his home for lamps.1
2 Edition of 5, 2 5/8 x 2 1/8 inches, artist proof donated by the artist to the University Art Collection (UAC.2009.02).
1 Memo in the museum’s object file on this work. A photograph of this lamp is found in the Medellin archives, Flat File Box 04, Bywaters Special Collections, Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University. This information kindly provided by Ellen Buie Niewyk, curator, Bywaters Special Collections.
Appendix: Highlights of Modern Sculpture from the University Art Collection, SMU
158
159
OCTAVIO MEDELLIN
JAMES SULLIVAN
(American, b. Mexico, 1907 (or 1908)–1999)
2
(American, b. 1952)
Untitled (Woman Holding a Deer), c. 1930–36
3
Between, 2001 Plaster, straw, steel, and pigment 27 x 12 x 16 in. (68.6 x 30.5 x 40.6 cm) Gift of the Estate of Mrs. Shirley Pollock, UAC.2009.01
Terracotta 17 x 5 ½ x 8 in. (43.2 x 14 x 20.3 cm) University Art Collection, UAC.1975.23
Literature and Exhibitions:
Provenance: Purchased through (Conduit Gallery, Dallas) by Mrs. Shirley Pollock [1928–2008], Dallas, 2002; bequest to University Art Collection at Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas, 2009.
First Annual Texas Crafts Exhibition. Dallas: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, 1949, cat. 4 (as Figure).
Literature and Exhibitions:
Face and Form: Modern and Contemporary Sculpture at the Meadows Museum. Meadows Museum, Dallas, 2009–10.
James W. Sullivan: Provisional Self, exh. cat. Dallas: Meadows Museum, Southern Methodist University, 2002, pp. 26–27 and 42. “New Acquisitions: The Shirley Pollock Gift,” At the Meadows, Fall 2009, p. 13.
Octavio Medellin was born in Mexico and moved with his family to San Antonio, Texas, in 1920. After art studies at the San Antonio
James Sullivan earned his BA in philosophy at Yale University and
School of Art and the Art Institute of Chicago, he traveled widely in
an MFA in sculpture at California State University at Long Beach. He
Mexico, where he was greatly impressed by both contemporary and
teaches sculpture at SMU and has served as chair of the Division of
popular native art. Upon his return to the United States, he taught
Art. He is an accomplished draftsman and printmaker but is best
sculpture in San Antonio, then moved in 1938 to Denton, Texas,
known for his sculpture and his unique working process comprised
teaching first at North Texas State College and subsequently at
of modeling the human figure with straw compacted with plaster.
Southern Methodist University and the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts.
In Between, as with many of his works, there is an evident
Eventually he opened in Dallas the Medellin School of Sculpture.
affiliation with the sculptures of Alberto Giacometti, whether in the
During the 1940s and 50s he participated in both regional and
emphasized verticality of his standing figures, their sense of isolation
national exhibitions and attained a significant reputation for sculp-
in a vast space, or their richly textured surfaces. In 2009, Sullivan
ture, ceramics, and stained glass treating religious, historical, and
noted about Between that, “The piece is based on a Giacometti
humanist themes in an archaizing realist style.
drawing of a tightrope walker, which I became interested in working
Medellin’s Untitled (Woman Holding a Deer) is a smaller version
into a figure. I was taken by the question of balance and hesitancy—
of a sculpture he made for the Majestic Building in San Antonio along
the figure [Between] seems to neither be moving forward nor back,
with a companion work, Man Holding Wheat. Its streamlined styliza-
but oscillating between the two.”1 In 2002 Sullivan made an etching
tions reflect strains of modernism and Art Deco current in the 1930s.
of the same figure, also titled Between.2
When the artist saw this work in storage at the Meadows Museum in 1997 he reported that he had made copies of the original version and 1 Email to the Meadows Museum, contained in the museum’s object file on Between.
its pendant and used them in his home for lamps.1
2 Edition of 5, 2 5/8 x 2 1/8 inches, artist proof donated by the artist to the University Art Collection (UAC.2009.02).
1 Memo in the museum’s object file on this work. A photograph of this lamp is found in the Medellin archives, Flat File Box 04, Bywaters Special Collections, Hamon Arts Library, Southern Methodist University. This information kindly provided by Ellen Buie Niewyk, curator, Bywaters Special Collections.
Appendix: Highlights of Modern Sculpture from the University Art Collection, SMU
158
159