HAND/MADE Catalogue by Kara Mask

JENN Y CARSON

EXHIBITION DEVELOPMENT SEMINAR 2014-2015

RINEHART’S STUDIO: ROUGH STONE TO LIVING MARBLE

THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM

MARYLA ND INSTITUTE COLLEGE OF ART

1300 West Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217

600 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

FOREWORD

BIOGRAPHY

RINEHART’S STUDIO: ROUGH STONE TO LIVING MARBLE

CATALOGUE

CREDITS & ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

F OR E WOR D B Y JO BR IG G S

illiam T. Walters lived in a sculptural world. The front door of his townhouse at 5 West Mount Vernon Place was decorated with reliefs of water nymphs; the ornate sideboard in his diningroom was adorned with dead game carved with high realism in wood; and his study was filled with dynamic bronzes by the famous French sculptor of animals Antoine-Louis Barye. For the decade after the Civil War, Walters’ entrance hall formed a gallery of American sculptures. Most prominent was a significant early commission from William Henry Rinehart, the life-sized marble Woman of Samaria. Walters’ devotion to sculpture also crossed media; he commissioned cameos after Rinehart’s works, which he intended to be worn by female relatives. Not content with filling his domestic realm with sculptural objects, in 1884, Walters brought his private passion to the public by donating five works by Barye to the city of Baltimore, turning Mount Vernon Place into an outdoor art museum, which, conveniently, was overlooked by his study. The gift comprised the large lion that gazes up at George Washington on his monument and the four allegorical groups of War, Peace, Order, and Force. Later, Walters donated a statue by Paul Dubois titled Military Courage and a seated bronze of Roger B. Taney by Rinehart—testament to Walters’ enduring Southern sympathies. In Rome, Rinehart and his team of Italian workers also lived in a sculptural world, but one quite different from that of his friend and patron Walters in Baltimore. In his studio, Rinehart directed his highly skilled employees in the production of portrait busts of wealthy Americans and idealizing sculptures in multiple versions and different sizes to suit a range of budgets. It was these workers who turned Rinehart’s clay models into plasters and then finished marbles. It is symptomatic of the highly conflicted relationship with labor, waged and otherwise, in nineteenth-century America that visiting tourists, such as Walters and his family, would experience firsthand in Rinehart’s studio the collaborative nature of the sculpting process, but still ascribe the finished work to Rinehart

only. The pristine marble sculptures and portrait busts that traveled from Rinehart’s dusty studio to parlors and galleries in the United States appear to exist outside time; their smooth surfaces deny the hand of either artist or worker, and the beauty of the finished works effaces their origins. Their owners forgot what they had seen at the workshop, thinking only of high art. These sculptures represented pure thought and abstracted and enduring values. However, close looking at Rinehart’s marble sculptures reveals the tensions behind their production. His finished works share the same startling qualities: Rinehart and his team of workers were highly skilled at suggesting fabric stretched over bodies, multiple layers of fabric over fabric, lace over hair, and youthful or aging skin over bone. When the surfaces of these sculptures are examined in detail, the drill marks that remain from the pointing dev ice can be discerned. Used to transfer exact dimensions from plaster model to marble block, this series of minute holes covers the finished piece. Occasionally a flaw in the marble is covered with wax or plaster which has yellowed over time. In these small traces, the physical work of the carver, the character of the natural stone, and the action of time return. Both the MICA exhibition HAND / MADE and its counterpart Rinehart’s Studio: Rough Stone to Living Marble at the Walters Art Museum invite audiences to dwell on the tensions between process and finished work. The collaboration with MICA allowed Rinehart’s Sleeping Children to be juxtaposed with new and newly commissioned art before the piece was moved to the museum; at the Walters, it was exhibited alongside other finished works, and also tools and pointing devices. Through engagement with a Victorian art work, both exhibitions reveal how questions of labor and art, process and aesthetics, and collaboration and authorship are common to both the nineteenth century and the contemporary art world.

rough stone to living marble

BIOGR A PH Y B Y J E N N Y C A R S ON

Maryland native who permanently established his studio in Rome in 1858, William Henry Rinehart is considered one of the most talented sculptors of his generation, and his work provides an important link between American neoclassicism and a more naturalistic aesthetic of the late nineteenth century (Figure 1). 1 He was born in Union Bridge, a small town in Carroll County, Maryland. Not surprisingly, as he is one of the state’s most celebrated sculptors, the stories of Rinehart’s life and artistic successes are often embellished with anecdotes that illustrate unusual and providential creative talent. 2 According to most accounts, Rinehart’s early childhood was inauspicious; he was the fourth of eight brothers born to a well-to-do farming family. His father, Israel Rinehart, expected his sons to continue the family enterprise, and to get good educations, but Rinehart did not demonstrate aptitude for either farming or schoolwork. It was not until the young Rinehart began to work at a small stone quarry on his father’s property that his true vocation as a sculptor was realized. Here he learned to work with stone, aiding in the production of tombstones and architectural elements such as mantels and window frames. Wishing to further his artistic training, Rinehart moved to the thriving city of Baltimore where he became a journeyman stonecutter at the firm of Baughman & Bevan. According to one firsthand account, he distinguished himself with his stone-working skills, and the owner “fitted up a studio…for his especial use where he may work separate from his companions.”3 During the early 1850s, Rinehart supplemented his education at the stone yard by attending classes in drawing, architecture, anatomy, and design at the Maryland Institute of the Mechanic Arts (now the Maryland Institute College of Art). Rinehart was one of many craftsmen in a variety of fields who availed themselves of such evening coursework, which was designed especially for enhancing the mastery of their various professions. Early on, the Maryland Institute’s stated aims were to provide a place for a student to improve his “leisure hours in the practice of drawing and the sciences connected with it, to the end that he may become master of his profession, and in a high degree useful to himself and to the community.”4 Master craftsmen were implored to encourage such evening study amongst their apprentices.

Wayne Craven, Sculpture in America (Newark: University of Delaware Press and New York: Cornwall Books, 1984), 289 and H. Harvard Arnason, “Book Review: William Henry Rinehart, Sculptor, by William Sener Rusk,” Art Bulletin 23 (December 1941), p. 338. For a near contemporary account of Rinehart’s fame see “Art in Florence,” Daily News 16 March 1877. 2 For a thorough study of Rinehart’s life see William Sener Rusk, William Henry Rinehart: Sculptor (Baltimore: Norman T. A. Munder, Publisher, 1939). Based on numerous interviews with surviving family members and friends, Rusk attempts to piece together the artist’s life while separating biographical facts from anecdotal tales. For a catalog raisonne on the artist see Marvin Chauncey Ross and Anna Wells Rutledge, A Catalog of the Work of William Henry Rinehart, Maryland Sculptor, 1825-1874 (Baltimore: Trustees of the Peabody Institute and the Walters Art Museum, 1948). Ross’s research notes are housed in the Walters Art Museum Archives. 1

What distinguished Rinehart from many of the other apprentices and artisans in Baltimore was his level of artistry, skill, and ambition. He participated in several local exhibitions, including an 1851 show at the Maryland Institute, where he won a gold medal for a bas relief called The Smokers, modeled after a print of Flemish artist David Tenier’s painting of the same name. Two years later, he exhibited three pieces, two of them plaster portrait busts, at the Maryland Historical Society; the works are listed as Faith Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann and Reverend John Gottlieb Morris. Like other artists trying to attract patronage, Rinehart chose well-known individuals as his debut portrait subjects. Dr. Hahnemann (1755–1843) was a German physician credited with founding the field of homeopathy. It seems likely that Rinehart based this bust on an engraving of the subject.5 Reverend Morris (1802–1895), whose portrait exhibited in both 1853 and 1854, was a distinguished Baltimore Lutheran minister and scholar, and he served both as President of the Maryland Academy of Sciences and as the first Librarian of the Peabody Institute.6 Rinehart also began to model distinctly American genre subjects, and sold a marble sculpture of a woodsman to the Baltimore merchant S.G. Wyman. Despite these modest successes, he, like many other sculptors of his generation, desired to travel to Italy in order to study classical works firsthand, and to further refine his education. In 1855, with financial assistance from family and friends, Rinehart set sail for Italy. There are several accounts of Rinehart’s departure for Europe. According to one version of the story, the artist got his first big break when, while repairing a fireplace mantel, his talents came to the notice of wealthy businessman William T. Walters. Seeing the promise of the young artist’s talent, Walters financed his first trip to Italy, where he settled in Florence for two years beginning in 1855.7 Walters certainly did provide patronage and support for the sculptor throughout his career, but precisely when they actually met is not clear. It is perhaps more likely that Rinehart traveled to Italy with money provided by his father, or with a collection of funds given to him by several local businessmen, including Hugh Sisson and James Forbes. 8 Rinehart was only one of over 300 American artists who lived and worked in Italy between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries. 9 European and American sculptors were drawn to

Thomas van Bebber, “Sketch of a Great Artist,” The Home Journal (10 May 1856), p. 1. Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, Annual Report, 1852, p. 41. Decker Library Archives, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore. 5 Ross and Wells, p. 53. The bust is now in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. 6 Ibid, p. 59. The bust of Morris is in the collection of the Maryland Historical Society. 7 This is the account remembered by Walters’ son Henry, but it may be that funds for this trip were provided by several wealthy businessmen, or from the artist’s father. See Rusk, pp. 14-15. 8 Ibid. 9 Regina Soria, Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century American Artists in Italy, 1760-1914 (East Brunswick, NJ: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1982), 16. For more on American expatriate artists in Italy see Theodore Stebbins, Jr., ed., The Lure of Italy: American Artists and the Italian Experience, 1760-1914 (Boston and New York: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1992). 3

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Figu r e 1

BIOGRAPHY

Rome and Florence for several reasons. Italian marble was held in high regard because it was associated with antiquity, purity and prestige,10 and it was in abundant supply in the areas around Cararra in Tuscany. A relatively large workforce of trained Italian marble carvers were readily available, and because Italy was the ultimate destination for wealthy travelers on the grand tour, artists’ studios were often visited by prospective patrons, who might have ordered portrait busts or “ideal” works that could be shipped home as souvenirs of their trip. Artists lived in the same quarter of the city and guidebooks that listed the locations of the artists’ studios were regularly published. Aspiring sculptors, newly arrived in either Florence or Rome, would likely start out as carvers in established studios as a way of earning money and honing their skills. They might also avail themselves of artistic study, such as copying works of art in local museums, or sketching nude models in the evenings at either private or public academies. Little is known about Rinehart’s stay in Florence, including whom he worked for, but we may surmise that he contacted members of the American expat community upon his arrival. According to his obituary in the New York Times, upon the artist’s arrival in Florence, the Italian correspondent gave Rinehart’s name to Harry Stone, a wealthy American at the center of the expat community, who purchased the first work produced by Rinehart in that city.11 It is not clear which work the writer is referring to here, but evidently Rinehart did eventually produce a portrait of Stone, as he wrote in December of 1857 to his friend Frank B. Mayer from Rome that he had “modeled a bust of Mr. Stone.”12 Artists that he met there include the sculptors Hiram Powers, Thomas Ball, and Joel T. Hart, and painter Eli Vedder.13 In Florence, it is likely that Rinehart worked in a master sculptor’s studio as a stonecutter to hone his skills and to pay for his expenses.14 The sculpture scene at that time was dominated by Hiram Powers, an Ohio native who had permanently resided in Florence since his arrival in the late 1830s; he maintained a large and prosperous studio, and he taught art at the Flore Accademia. By all accounts, the sculptor’s stay in Florence was financially stressful, and it was only due to a commission that his friend Mayer obtained for him that he was able to stay for an extended period.15 In addition to several timely commissions, Joel Hart aided Rinehart’s finances when he invited the sculptor to accompany him to England where he hoped to patent a modeling device that he had invented. Hart paid Rinehart’s traveling and living expenses, which allowed him to

For a discussion of the importance of marble to nineteenth-century American sculpture see Lynne D. Ambrosini, “Pure, White Radiance:’ The Ideology of Marble in the Nineteenth Century,” in Hiram Powers: Genius in Marble, ed. Lynne D. Ambrosini and Rebecca Ann Gay Reynolds (Cincinnati, OH: Taft Museum of Art, 2007), 9-23. 11 Correspondent, “Italian Notes: The Late William Henry Rinehart,” New York Times (27 November 1874): 1. 10

spend the summer there visiting the Crystal Palace, Westminster Abbey, and the British Museum, which was “filled with great and noble works of sculpture.”16 He also continued to work up sketches in hopes of commissions, including one depicting a pioneer family, which he photographed and sent to Mayer. Rinehart had planned on returning to Florence in the fall, but London, too, turned out to be financially challenging. When Hart ran out of money, he reportedly gave Rinehart his last dollar, and the artist sailed straight back to Baltimore; apparently a last-minute portrait commission, which was paid for in advance, saved Hart from financial despair.17

Rinehart soon came to be regarded as one of the most talented American sculptors working in Rome, a condition attributed to his rising early and working late. Upon Rinehart’s return to Baltimore, he established a studio in Carroll Hall, at Baltimore and Calvert Streets. There he exhibited four circular bas-reliefs that he carved while abroad: Winter, Spring, Night, and Morning. This rounded format was popularized by the Danish neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorwaldsen (1777-1844), who worked in Rome during the first part of the nineteenth century. Rinehart undoubtedly knew the older artist’s roundels, Night and Day, as they were the most popular bas relief works of the century both in America and Europe.18 In addition to the popularity of the reliefs’ format and theme, the cost of producing such works was less than that of sculptures in the round; it required less material and labor, thus such panels were easier and cheaper to ship. 19 During this period, Rinehart also received some commissions from the federal government; he created figures for a mantelpiece, a fountain for the Postal Service in the form of an Indian, and a bronze Indian and Pioneer, which served as supporters for a clock in the House of Representatives. 20

Rinehart to Mayer, Rome, December 7, 1857. Hiram Fuller reports seeing a bust of Stone in Rinehart’s Roman studio around 1859. See Hiram Fuller, Sparks from a Locomotive; or, Life and Liberty in Europe (New York: Derby and Jackson, 1859), 271. 13 Elihu Vedder, The Digressions of V: Written for His Own Fun and That of His Friends (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1910), 157. Vedder recounts saving Rinehart from drowning while the two knew each other in Florence. 14 Wayne Craven, Sculpture in America (New York: Crowell, 1968), 289. 15 William Henry Rinehart to Frank B. Mayer, Florence, June 11, 1866, reproduced in Marvin C. Ross and Anna Wells Rutledge, eds., “William H. Rinehart’s Letters to Frank B. Mayer, 1856-1870,” Maryland Historical Magazine 44 (March 1949), p. 127. 16 Ibid. 17 “Art in Florence,” Daily News (London) 16 March 1877.

Although Rinehart did receive several sculptural commissions in 1857, he was not able to attract the clientele he needed in order to make a go of it in Baltimore, and in 1858, he once again set sail for Italy, this time settling in Rome. Although Rinehart seemed to like the lifestyle and weather better in Florence, he believed that the opportunity for study in Rome was far more advantageous. Shortly after his arrival in the Eternal City, he described himself as a small potato lost entirely “among the great swarm of sculptors” 21there. While Rinehart may have felt insecure of his artistic status early on in Rome, he made the city his home and only returned to America on several occasions to visit. A relatively large group of artists, writers, and patrons formed the nucleus of the social life for English speaking expats. Not only did the artists live in close proximity to each other, in the area of the city near the Spanish steps between the Via Margutta and the Piazza Barberini, they often spent their evenings together. One of the most popular and longstanding establishments was the Café Greco, the rooms of which were filled with artists of various nationalities. 22 The café was a place where one could collect his mail or borrow a book from its circulating library. In the late 1860s, the American Club, which was established and managed by artists, provided a number of salons that could be adapted for a number of private and social uses. 23 Rinehart and his fellow artists living and working in Rome followed a fairly regimented daily routine. Artists usually arrived at their studios in the mornings and worked until the afternoon, at which time they would receive visitors. 24 This custom of having one’s work disrupted to entertain the public was an important part of attracting patronage, particularly during the winter months, which were the height of the tourist season. In addition to various plaster models and sculptural tools throughout the studio, visitors might sometimes see an artist at work modeling in clay the basis for a new ideal work or portrait bust.

would make adjustments as needed, and then the large model would be cast into plaster. Usually, specially trained individuals did the casting because the original clay sketch was lost once the mold of the model was formed. A life size plaster model was cast from the plaster mold of the clay model, and it was this plaster model that workmen, using a variety of copying apparatuses, translated into marble. There are a number of firsthand reactions to this division of labor, which was seen as time-saving because it allowed the artist to spend his time on developing new themes and creating the original clay models. 26 Rinehart soon came to be regarded as one of the most talented American sculptors working in Rome, a condition attributed to his rising early and working late. 27 As early as 1860, a reviewer from the art magazine The Crayon praised his portrait busts as being among the best produced by any sculptor, and his early bas reliefs were considered by some to be superior to those by Thorwaldsen. 28 Even James Jackson Jarves, the caustic Italian correspondent for the Art Journal, regarded Rinehart’s work favorably. B. T., writing for the New York Daily Tribune in 1873, predicted that if Rinehart could live twenty years longer he would achieve a “noble fame,” as his art revealed an “intelligent ambition which is not as frequent as we could wish in American artists,” and his figural works were both anatomically naturalistic and graceful. 29 Unfortunately this prediction was not to be tested, because Rinehart died the following year.

Typically, once sculptors established their own studios, their engagement with the actual carving was limited; the artist’s role was to develop the concept and to produce a small clay sketch called a bozzetto. There are several contemporary accounts of Rinehart at work on such clay sketches from live models in the studio; sometimes he used several different models for one figure, depending upon the precise proportions he was aiming for. 25 Based on this three dimensional sketch, workmen would produce a large clay model supported by a metal armature. Once this was done, the artist

rough stone to living marble

William H. Gerdts, “The Neoclassic Relief,” in Perspectives on American Sculpture before 1925, ed. Thayer Tolles (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003), 12,2. 19 Ibid., 7. 20 Correspondence between Rinehart and Montgomery Meigs, supervisor of the US Capitol extension, Collection of the United States Capitol, Washington, DC, quoted in Ross and Wells, 46-47. 21 William Henry Rinehart to Frank B. Mayer, Rome, December 7, 1859, Rinehart Papers, Peabody Archives, Baltimore, Maryland, reprinted in Ross and Rutledge, William H. Rinehart’s Letters, 135. 22 Henry P. Leland, Americans in Rome (New York: Charles T. Evans, 1863), 93. 23 Angelico, “Rome: American Social Life,” New York Times June 14, 1870, p. 1. 24 James Jackson Jarves, “Visits to the Studios of Rome,” Art Journal (June 1871), p. 162. 25 See “American Artists in Italy,” p. 422, Boston Daily Evening Transcript 3 July 1869, “American Artists in Rome,” Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser(Dublin) 15 January 1869, and “Art Notes,” The Evening Star 15 March 1873. 18

See “American Artists in Italy,” p. 422, Boston Daily Evening Transcript 3 July 1869, “American Artists in Rome,” Freeman’s Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser(Dublin) 15 January 1869, and “Art Notes,” The Evening Star 15 March 1873. 26 Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote extensively about his visits to the artists’ studios in Italy, reproduced in Nathaniel Hawthorne, The French and Italian Notebooks, Thomas Woodson, ed. (Columbus, OH: Ohio University Press, 1858). Harriet Hosmer famously defended the practice of relying on workmen in the studio in Harriett Hosmer, “The Process of Sculpture,” The Atlantic Monthly (December 1854), pp. 734-37. 27 “Art Life and American Artists in Rome,” New York Times 29 March 1868. 28 The Crayon (November 1860), p. 324 and “A Visit to the Studios of American Sculptors in Rome,” The Leeds Mercury February 12, 1867. 29 Jarves, “Visits to the Studios of Rome,” p. 163. 25

rough stone to living marble

R I N EH A RT ’ S ST U DIO : ROUGH STONE TO LI V I NG MA R BLE B Y J E N N Y C A R S ON

n October 28, 1874 , American sculptor William Henr y Rinehart died in Rome from a lingering lung ailment. With him during his final hours were some of his closest friends: a young Augustus SaintGaudens, British sculptor George Simonds, and A merican painters Charles Caryl Coleman and Louis Long. 1 At the time of his death, his colleagues, workmen, and patrons began the arduous process of closing up his studio, a task that involved a close examination of his account books, completing unfinished works, and finding buyers for unsold pieces. The details of these proceedings are chronicled in a series of letters and ledgers that contain information regarding patrons, payments, income, and workmen. What this correspondence reveals is that Rinehart’s studio, like others of its type, was a busy, collaborative enterprise that required the work and expertise of a number of individuals to produce each work. Carving marble was an industrial process: from the quarrying of the stone, to the collaboration among teams of workmen, who transformed rough stone into pristine marble sculptures. Carved marble is a medium that has long been used for lofty themes, to signal permanence or a patron’s status, and to create a dialog with the traditions of antiquity. In her 2004 essay “The Ethics of Making,” Martina Droth arg ues that neoclassical marble sculpture was meant to be viewed in a rarefied world in which beauty transcended the manual labor involved in its creation (Figure 2). As a result, artists sought to emphasize their own creative powers, which separated them from the necessary, often large, workforce they employed in their studios. 2 But this analysis omits the fact that nineteenth-century sculpture studios were frequently visited by tourists who encountered artists in their workspaces and who sought to experience firsthand the collaborative and laborious process by which marble sculptures were made. While it is true that artists were considered the creative force and workmen merely skilled artisans, the time that lapsed between placing an order in Italy and receiving the finished work—months, if not years later—emphasized the amount of labor involved in producing marble sculptures. Using Rinehart’s studio in Rome as a case study, this essay examines the daily workings of a nineteenth-century sculpture studio, and the broader context Augustus Saint-Gaudens, The Reminiscences of Augustus Saint-Gaudens, ed. Homer Saint-Gaudens, 2 vols. (New York: Century Co., 1913), 1:140; and Louis Long, Rome to ? October 29, 1874, Rinehart Papers, Peabody Institute Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. 2 Martina Droth, “The Ethics of Making: Craft and English Sculptural Aesthetics, c. 1851-1900,” Journal of Design History 17 (2004), p. 223. 1

of how marble sculptures were made, purchased, and valued. During Rinehart’s illness, and immediately following his death, the running of his studio was dependent upon friends and paid workmen. The summer before he died, he was advised by his doctors to leave Rome for Switzerland in hopes of improving his health. In his absence, he enlisted the help of his friend George Simonds to oversee the running of his studio; Simonds’ duties included super vising workmen in the completion of several commissions. W hen Rinehart returned to Rome in October, it was obvious that his illness had worsened and that he was unable to work. Simonds continued to run the studio until the sculptor’s death a few weeks later. According to an inventory taken at that time, there were a number of sculptures left to be finished. What emerges from these documents is a picture of a studio that operated on several levels, producing everything from expensive sculptures based on classical or literary themes, to plaster casts of famous antique works, to marble and plaster portrait busts, as well as small copies of famous works aimed specifically at the tourist trade. In order to carry out these varied commissions, Rinehart managed and worked with more than twenty artisans and carvers, although not all of them were in his employ at the same time. His account books record the names of the workers, as well as their specific occupations in the studio, and how much they were paid for each task (Figure 3). The sculptor’s head man was Leone Clerici, who worked for Rinehart from the time he established himself in Rome in 1858 until Rinehart’s death in 1874, at which time Clerici was paid by the executors of Rinehart’s estate to aid in completing unfinished works. Studio account books reveal that Clerici began working in the studio as a finisher, paid, like the rest of Rinehart’s workforce, on a daily basis and by the task, but by late 1864 , he was paid a regular weekly salary. Evidently, Clerici was the sculptor’s most senior employee; when Rinehart left Rome each summer, he relied on Clerici to pay the workmen in his absence. Clerici also appears to have had his own side-business that he operated out of Rinehart’s studio. His signature appears on a number of busts of famous Classical and Renaissance philosophers and poets, which are dated from the early 1870s when he was working for Rinehart. 3 But while Clerici produced established “types” The Baltimore Museum of Art owns at least three plaster busts of such figures: the bust of Donatello’s St. Lawrence, Young Caesar, and Young Renaissance Man. These busts were donated by M. Carey Thomas, and purportedly came from Rinehart’s studio. Only one marble signed by Rinehart is recorded (Young Caesar) so it is likely these were used as models by Clerici. According to the 1905 edition of the New York Public Library handbook, Mrs. Franklin Delano presented twenty-four busts of famous personages to the Astor Building of the New York Public Library. See Handbook to the New York Public Library: Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations (New York, 1905), 16. 3

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Figu r e 2

RINEHART’S STUDIO: ROUGH STONE TO LIVING MARBLE

SECTION TITLE

popular among collectors, who sometimes ordered an entire series of such busts, Rinehart’s oeuvre was restricted to portrait busts and works of his own invention. 4 Interestingly, in 1867 P. C. Brooks ordered a version of a Young Augustus, a popular type during the period, “to be made by Mr. Rinehart and to bear his name.”5 Of course the name of the artist etched into the bust’s base is not indicative of the actual carver, and in June of that year Rinehart’s account books list payments to Leone for carving Young Augustus. 6 It was widely acknowledged that the essential aspect of artistic endeavor was not the actual carving of the work but the invention of the concept and composition of the subject matter. This understanding was what separated Rinehart’s designation as sculptor from Clerici’s as mere artisan: Rinehart was the designer and creative force of the works executed by his studio that bore his signature. Like other neoclassical sculptors of his generation, Rinehart desired above all to create “ideal works” (pieces that are not portrait commissions) based on stories from popular culture, mythology, or the Bible. Sculptors needed to be strategic in choosing a subject because if the sculpture proved to be popular, it could be reproduced many times, contributing to the artist’s reputation and financial success. While Rinehart started out producing works based on narratives associated with American frontier life, he soon moved away from those themes and embraced the subject matter of works from classical Greece and Rome. Unfortunately, Rinehart rarely discussed the meaning of these ideal works, and the drawings in his sketchbooks lack specificity and annotations. A study of the few drawings he did produce suggest that he chose subjects from classical mythology, while drawing formal inspiration from nineteenth-century models, which he modified and reinterpreted.7 The tempered naturalism and chaste elegance of his figural works is in keeping with Victorian reinterpretations of neoclassical subject matter. A work very clearly in this vein became Rinehart’s most popular and reproduced sculpture: the Sleeping Children (See p. 29). This sculpture was commissioned from Baltimore businessman Hugh Sisson in 1859, and up to eighteen more versions of the work were produced by Rinehart’s studio over the next fifteen years. The theme of innocent children at rest connoted the notion of eternal sleep, an allusion to death, and a popular theme in the nineteenth century. Janet Headley has pointed out the formal and conceptual

For a complete list of sculptures produced by Rinehart’s studio, see Ross and Rutledge. 5 Libro Maestro, p. 29, Rinehart Papers, Peabody Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. . 6 Libro Maestro, June 7, 1867 lists payments to Clerici. See Libro Maestro, 29. 7 For a study of the meaning and form of Rinehart’s ideal works, see Janet Headly, English Literary and Aesthetic Inf luences on American Sculptors in Italy, 1825-1875 (PhD diss., University of Maryland, 1988), 262-329. Headly characterizes Rinehart as a “creative copyist.” 4

Figu r e 3

similarities between Rinehart’s sculpture and a similarly themed work by Belgian sculptor Willem Geefs. He also likely saw Sir Francis Chantrey’s 1815 The Sleeping Children, a funerary monument in Lichfield Cathedral during a visit to England. 8 Although several patrons ordered Rinehart’s Sleeping Children to commemorate children who had died, other versions were purchased, like the one ordered by J. Gordon and pictured here, because of the sweet sentimentality of the theme, emphasized by the finely carved details of the children’s chubby bodies and curly hair. W hile Sleeping Children ref lects a Victorian attitude that characterized much of nineteenth-century popular culture, Rinehart also developed more historical works that he hoped would not only please American audiences but also gain him the respect of European artists.9 In choosing such subject matter, Rinehart, by his own admission, was hampered by his lack of formal education, a situation that sometimes embarrassed him. Unlike some of his colleagues in Rome who attended school and apprenticed with master artists, the bulk of Rinehart’s training took place in a Baltimore stone yard.10 In spite of these Ibid., 273-77. Rinehart to Mayer, Rome, December 7, 1859, Rinehart Papers, Peabody Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. 10 For a discussion of the importance of marble to nineteenth-century American sculpture see Lynne D. Ambrosini, “‘Pure, White Radiance:’ The Ideology of Marble in the Nineteenth Century,” in Hiram Powers: Genius in Marble, ed. Lynne D. Ambrosini and Rebecca Ann Gay Reynolds (Cincinnati, OH: Taft Museum of Art, 2007), 9-23. 8

rough stone to living marble

Figure 4

rough stone to living marble

Figu r e 4

RINEHART’S STUDIO: ROUGH STONE TO LIVING MARBLE

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educational shortcomings, Rinehart conceived of and modeled at least ten themes from my tholog y including Endymion, Antigone, Atalanta, Clytie, Hebe, Hero, Latona and Her Children, Leander, Woman of Samaria (Figure 4), Thetis (Figure 5), and a model for an ideal head that he titled Penserosa (Figure 6).

According to studio records and first-hand accounts, he preferred to use live models to sculpt the bozzettos, and he favored modeling at life size. Once the subject was developed, Rinehart formed a detailed clay sketch, called a bozzetto. This was the stage at which the artist was the most intimately involved in the sculpting process, because it was here that the artist’s conception came to fruition in threedimensional form. In preparation for the modeling, workmen created an armature in the general shape of the sculpture, upon which a thick layer of clay was pressed. From this, Rinehart then sculpted the proposed work. According to studio records and first-hand accounts, he preferred to use live models to sculpt the bozzettos, and he favored modeling at life size; the sculptures could be reduced in marble if necessary. 11 In one account from 1870, Rinehart was seen in his studio modeling the arm of a Clytie, presumably in the form of a clay sketch, from a woman who sat before him; she was one of at least six different living models he employed for this figure. 12 In 1873 Rinehart wrote his sisterin-law that he had female models in his studio almost every day of the week.13 Based on the few drawings we have from Rinehart, it appears that he did not work out the details of his sculptures on paper, but rather in clay; the figural drawings in his sketchbook are so roughly drawn that they could not provide much guidance for modeling. In addition to ideal works, Rinehart had a robust portrait practice, which involved modeling the sitter’s bust in clay. For this purpose, clay was pressed around a strong stick attached to a board placed on a banker—a high rotating stool. When he was not at work on the sketch, the clay was kept moist by Rinehart to Mayer, Rome, December 7, 1859, Rinehart Papers, Peabody Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. 12 Dr. Samuel Osgood, “American Artists in Italy,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 41 (August 1870), p. 422. 13 Rinehart to Mrs. Daniel Rinehart, August 17, 1873, quoted in Rusk, 53. 11

wrapping it in damp cloths.14 In one of his sketchbooks, Rinehart includes a portrait of an artist modeling a clay bust (Figure 7). Once the clay sketch was complete and dry, it was cast into plaster, and the resulting sculpture served as a model for the carving process. This was accomplished through a process called waste molding, so named because both the clay sketch and the mold are lost once the plaster model is cast. In this technique, wet plaster is poured into a Plaster of Paris mold taken from the clay sketch. Usually the mold was colored with dye to distinguish it from the plaster model. A small bit of coloring is visible on parts of the bust of Louise Coast Yewell, which was produced in Rinehart’s studio around 1870 (Figure 8). Once cast, the plaster models were cleaned up; residue of the dye was sanded away, and any imperfections from the casting process were corrected. 15 Plaster casting required specialized skills, especially since the clay sketch, which often represented months of work, was lost. According to Margaret Thomas’ 1911 manual, How to Understand Sculpture, plaster casting is “merely a mechanical process though requiring great care and experience, since the work of months or even years is then entirely at the hand of the workman.” 16 For example, Rinehart’s sketch for Woman of Samaria (Figure 4) occupied him for nine months. Although at least nineteen studio assistants are recorded in Rinehart’s account books, the only workman specifically identified as a caster is Carlo Ceci, and he is mentioned from 1860 to 1873, at various intervals. Like other workmen in the studio, Ceci was usually paid by the week (around 7 scudi) and then received additional money per job. In ideal works as large as Woman of Samaria or Love Reconciled with Death (See p. 35), the sketch was cast in pieces and then joined together. The outstretched arm of the latter figure was undoubtedly cast separately: A clean break is visible where the missing portion would have been attached. One notation in Rinehart’s account book mentions payment to Ceci for “putting together” a plaster figure.17 When Rinehart produced clay portrait sketches while in America, he then shipped the plaster models back to Rome, where they were carved by his studio workforce.18 In the case of both large and small projects, potential technical problems necessarily were taken into account. When examining Rinehart’s busts, one is struck by the seemingly precarious

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Margaret Thomas, How to Understand Sculpture (London: G. Bell and Sons, 1911), 14. 15 In this case, however, a seam where two halves of the model were pieced together is still visible along the head and shoulders. Louise was the wife of the landscape painter George Henry Yewell, who maintained a studio near Rinehart’s Roman studio. The Yewells and Rinehart were part of a lively American expatriate community that enjoyed studio visits, parties, and touring Rome and its environs. The purpose for this plaster portrait is unknown; it was never produced in marble, and it was in the collection of the sitter at the time of her death. 16 Thomas, How to Understand Sculpture, 15. 17 Account book, Rinehart Papers, Peabody Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. 18 Rinehart’s papers include a receipt dated around this time from the Baltimore shop of D. Foreschi for castings of thirteen busts at eight dollars each and one mask, presumably Lurman’s. See receipt in Rinehart Papers, Peabody Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. Although Rinehart took a mask of Lurman’s face, this practice was not common for live subjects who sat for the sculptor as he would a painter. See Thomas, How to Understand Sculpture, 15. 14

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balance of some of the figures on their pedestals, a technical issue that needed to be worked out at the clay sketch stage. The bust of William T. Walters is quite stable; the base is formed by the subject’s squared-off upper torso, and the composition is symmetrically balanced (Figure 9). But in a number of Rinehart’s busts, such as that of Ellen Walters, the subject is presented slightly asymmetrically; her head turns and leans to her right, and unlike the wide bottom of her husband’s portrait, her bust is balanced upon a small base that rests atop the pedestal (Figure 10). This sense of precarious balance is impressive given the fact that all but the small base and pedestal were cast in one piece . Plaster models used by nineteenth-century carvers rarely survive, but a number of Rinehart’s are in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Like most plaster models owned by museums, usually they are not displayed in a gallery setting, for while plaster casts of antique models have been long recognized for their pedagogical value, both in terms of shaping public taste and art education, plasters used in replicating works into marble were a means to an end. They were not intrinsically valued, but functioned as a kind of stand-in for an imagined finished work, like the plaster foot of Erastus Dow Palmer’s popular sculpture The White Captive, from around 1858 (Figure 15).

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A striking aspect of Rinehart’s plaster models is the level of detail he was able to achieve. This is especially evident in the plaster bust of fellow expatriate painter James Edward Freeman, who, like Yewell, was a neighbor and friend (Figure 11). The large signature etched into plaster on the back of the base suggests that this work was never meant to be recorded in marble. The plaster model features an amazing number of details like facial wrinkles, and subtle modulations of skin are visible. Plaster models were also important media for advertising the artist’s work. They were on view in the studio in the hope that a patron would select one to be replicated in marble. Additionally, Rinehart mailed photographs of his models to friends in America with the request that they be distributed to potential patrons.19 In the case of one of his works, Endymion from 1874, an enigmatic letter seems to provide evidence for this practice. On April 28, 1874 Rinehart wrote to his longtime patron and friend William Walters, “Mr. Garrett bought my Endymion a statue I thought was lost has turned up…”20 Because the sentence lacks any clarifying punctuation, it is not certain whether Rinehart is referring to Endymion as the statue he “lost,” but if so, Garrett likely ordered the work from a photograph. 21

A striking aspect of Rinehart’s plaster models is the level of detail he was able to achieve... The plaster model features an amazing number of details like facial wrinkles, and subtle modulations of skin are visible. When a patron ordered a portrait bust or selected a plaster model to be replicated in marble, the next step was to procure the stone.

Rinehart to William T. Walters, June 26, Rinehart Papers, Peabody Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. 20 Rinehart to William T. Walters, April 28, 1874, Rinehart Papers, Peabody Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. 21 Mr. Garrett’s version of Endymon is currently in the collection of Bryn Mawr College. 19

The quarries around the small town of Cararra provided the marble for many of Europe’s sculptors from the time of antiquity, and for this reason, the town, quarries, and countryside in this region of Tuscany were popular tourist spots in the nineteenth century. Visitors could take carriage rides up the mountainside, where they witnessed the extraction of marble blocks. This process involved inserting wooden wedges into cracks in the stone, and then soaking them with water. As the wood expanded, the marble block gradually became dislodged. Because the marble blocks were so heavy, before they were transported from the quarry, workmen cut off any excess stone to avoid shipping extra weight. In the first half of the nineteenth century, the only way to travel to or from the quarry was by wagon, and the large blocks were brought down the mountain in carts drawn by at least four pairs of oxen. The sheer size and weight of the marble is evident in a late-nineteenth-century photograph of a large block of stone arriving at the Laboratorio Nicoli Architettura in Carrara (Figure 13). During the transport of the marble, men sat atop each yoke and used sticks to urge the animals on. This job was so hard on the animals that they could only work in this capacity for about six months. 22 In the sixteenth century sculptors traveled to the quarry to select marble blocks themselves, but by Rinehart’s day most artists relied on marble merchants who acted as go-betweens. A number of entries in Rinehart’s account books record such purchases from a man named Mazzini. 23 Once the stone was acquired, the carving process was begun by a team of workmen in the studio. There are a number of first-hand accounts and reactions to this division of labor, which was seen as efficient, allowing the artist to spend his time on developing new themes, and creating original clay sketches. 24 The first step was to “rough out” the marble by taking measurements of the plaster model; using those measurements, a workman hewed off the excess stone. If it was a bust, it was “backed out,” or roughly shaped in the back. Once this was done, the plaster model and the marble block were placed on two wooden platforms braced against the wall about three feet apart. There were two primary methods for reproducing sculpture in the nineteenth century; both utilized a pointing system, so named because it involves identifying prominent reference points on the model to use as guides. It is unclear which method Rinehart used. 25 In the older

Thomas, How to Understand Sculpture, 22. Rinehart’s account book, Rinehart Papers, Peabody Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. 24 Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote extensively about his visits to the artists’ studios in Italy, reproduced in Nathaniel Hawthorne, The French and Italian Notebooks, Thomas Woodson, ed. (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1980). The American sculptor Harriet Hosmer famously defended the practice of relying on workmen in the studio in Harriett Hosmer, “The Process of Sculpture,” Atlantic Monthly, (December 1854), pp. 734-37. 25 J ane Bassett and Peggy Fogelman, Looking at European Sculpture: A Guide to Technical Terms (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, 1997), 70. 22 23

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method, two wooden frames were attached to the wall above both marble and model. The frames, which needed to be identical, were divided into quarter-inch segments that provided fixed reference points. 26 A plumb line was attached to each frame, and hung down over the model and marble. A mark was placed on the spot on the model that protruded the most, usually with a pin inserted into the plaster, and then using the corresponding plumb line, a corresponding point was marked on the marble. The measure of how deep one needed to carve at each point was ascertained by using a ruler extended from the plumb line to the model. Once the appropriate amount of marble was removed, three large compasses tested the accuracy of the depth achieved. Guided by three nails (two at the corners of the base of the works and one at a point at the top of the model and marble block), the tip of each compass marked the desired spot. If the three marks made by the compasses intersected, the removal of the correct amount of marble had been achieved. At least sixty points (called primary points) would have been used for this part of the procedure. 27 Once these primary points were blocked out and the shape of the marble began to resemble the general shape of the model, carvers or finishers took over the job and worked to bring out the form’s details. The second, more commonly used method for pointing in the nineteenth century, especially for smaller works, involved using a device called a pointing machine. The first part of the pointing process is the same; model and marble are placed on bases and a level piece of wood is fixed on the front of both. The pointing instrument is essentially a vertical rod to which a pin is attached (Figure 12). This smaller pin can move in every direction and is held firm by a screw. Primary points of the model are marked; at each point the rod is used to determine how much marble should be carved. The device is then transferred to the base of the marble and the needle is screwed into the surface at that particular point. The sculptor then drills the appropriate distance into the marble. Once all the holes are drilled, the sculptor removes the marble between holes. In both methods, the same carving tools are used. The larger chisel is used for the general blocking out, while a tooth chisel, worked in cross-hatching motions, removes even more marble, and the rasp, or file, removes the striations formed by the tooth chisel. While the surfaces of Rinehart’s sculptures are smooth today, there are some telltale signs of the pointing i n s t r u m e nt i n Wo m a n o f S a m a r i a ’s h a i r a n d c lo t h i n g . According to Rinehart’s accounts, over the years at least eight of his workmen were paid specifically for blocking out and

This method is described in detail in a letter from Thomas Crawford to Montgomery Meigs. See Thomas Crawford to Montgomery Meigs, December 14, 1854, Archives of the Architect of the Capitol, Washington, DC. 27 Ibid. 26

Figure 18 Figu r e 12

pointing work, while five were considered carvers or finishers. The amount of time it took to complete each sculpture by Rinehart’s team varied according to the size and complexity of the project. In the case of Woman of Samaria (Figure 6), the blocking out began on February 20, 1861, by Felice Papavanti, who was paid 150 scudi. Papavanti worked on more than one statue at a time and received a weekly sum of around 10 scudi. 28 On the evidence of this and other payment entries, it is likely that each worker received a weekly stipend, and he was paid an additional sum when tasks on specific works were completed. Blocking Woman of Samaria lasted until mid-July when Papavanti commenced pointing, and he worked in this capacity on the sculpture through August. In late September, Clerici began the final carving, and like Papavanti, he worked on several other projects, and did not complete Woman of Samaria until July of 1862, almost a year after he began. As indicated by the length of time it took to carve a marble sculpture, the most substantial expense for the sculptor was his labor force. 29 Perhaps because it took so long to produce each sculpture (and by the 1870s even Rinehart’s portrait practice had a serious backlog), Rinehart arranged for his carvers to block out ideal works on speculation; they received payment for the work once it was ordered and completed. In some cases, he even allowed Clerici to finish works without buyers. In a somewhat confusing

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The entries in Rinehart’s account books are sometimes ambiguous, a situation lamented by the executors of his estate, who were trying to close up his workshop, and it is not clear if the 150 scudi paid to Papavanti was in addition to his weekly pay, or part of it, but on the evidence of other entries in the account books, it is likely that this was additional pay. 29 This is discussed in the context of Canova in Luisa Passeggia, “Marble Trade: The Lazzerini Workshop and the Arts, Crafts and Entrepreneurs of Carrara in the Early Nineteenth Century,” in Sicca and Yarrington, p. 166. 28

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letter from Rinehart’s executor in Rome, William Herriman, to William T. Walters, Herriman wrote, “Rinehart several years ago allowed his head man [Clerici] to finish with the understanding his work should be paid by him when sold.” 30 This unusual practice may be why there were so many unfinished works without buyers in his studio when he died. This statue of the water nymph Thetis was one such work, and because so much labor had already been invested in its production, Herriman and Walters decided that it would be more cost-effective to authorize its completion (Figure 5).

The artist and his labor force were viewed as a working unit, even though the studio assistants did most of the work. With multiple projects at various states of finish being worked on at one time, all overseen by the artist, the studio became a kind of theater that was open to the public during visiting hours. There are no known images of Rinehart’s studio, but this photograph of American sculptor William Couper’s workspace from around 1910 is typical (Figure 14). There are bankers and platforms for works in progress, and plaster portrait busts lined up on shelving on the walls. According to contemporary accounts, while creating portrait busts was not considered as lofty a pursuit as developing ideal figures, sculptors often displayed their plaster portrait models arranged on “long shelves, like the wares of a crockeryshop or cheeses in a dairy-house.” 31 This allusion to commerce is appropriate, for it was in the studio that patrons placed orders, made specific stipulations about pedestal, quality of marble, and subject matter. A sculptor’s studio was not the only place to purchase neoclassical statuary, however. Sculptors competed with large commercial galleries that provided travelers on the grand tour with everything from busts and allegorical figures to church altars to small marble ornaments. These galleries were often located near hotels that catered to Europeans and Americans, like the Andreoni Gallery in Rome, which promised marble portraits, “guaranteeing likeness.”32 But sculptors like Rinehart sought to distance themselves from such commercial galleries, even though their working methods were essentially the same.

“Affairs in Italy,” New York Times, March 29, 1868, p. 9. Herriman to Walters, December 23, 1874, Rinehart Papers, Peabody Archives, Baltimore, Maryland. 32 Sicca and Yarrington, 12. 30 31

One way in which sculptors who operated their own studios distinguished themselves was by opening their studios to the public so that they could discuss the invention and concept behind their works. The artist and his labor force were viewed as a working unit, even though the studio assistants did most of the work.33 So although artists and their public acknowledged the workshop model and the talents of the workmen, these carvers were considered “excellent sculptors in everything but creative power.”34 The practice of a master artist overseeing assistants led to the notion of artist-as-genius, a concept that originated in the sixteenth century, but which became particularly important in the early nineteenth century, perhaps because of the obvious role of studio assistants.35 At the same time, this open studio model threw into sharp focus the nineteenth-century sculptor’s status, which was a subject of lively debate. By the latter half of the century, attitudes toward this workshop practice began to change, and the process of carving itself became an important aspect of how the intrinsic value of the artwork was considered.36 The American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne was a frequent visitor to sculptors’ studios when he traveled throughout Italy in the 1850s and ‘60s. He recorded in his journal: “It is not quite pleasant to think that the sculptor does not really do the whole labor on his statues, but that they are all but finished to his hand by merely mechanical people.”37 Referring to the carving process in theatrical terms, he calls into question the skills of the artist in his 1860 novel The Marble Faun: In no other art, surely, does genius find such effective instruments, and so happily relieve itself of the drudgery of actual performance; doing wonderfully nice things by the hands of other people, when it may be suspected they could not always be done by the sculptor’s own. And how much of the admiration which our artists get for their buttons and buttonholes, their shoeties, their neck cloths— we re ge ne rally aware that the sc ulptor can claim no c redit for such pret t y per for mances, a s immor talized in marble! 3 8 In this assessment, Hawthorne challenges the traditional view that the invention and modeling of the original sketch is the most important aspect of the sculpture. Echoing Hawthorne’s concerns, in May of 1879, a critic for the London Daily Telegraph observed, “In these days it is not known how many sculptors positively chisel their own statues and how many do not know how to handle a chisel at

Anne Middleton Wagner, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux: Sculptor of the Second Empire (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1986), 8. 34 B. T., “Art in Italy: Visits to Some American Studios,” New York Daily Tribune, May 10, 1873, p. 1. 35 Michele Helene Bogart, “Attitudes Toward Sculpture Reproductions in America, 1850-1880,” (PhD. diss., University of Chicago, 1979), 2. 36 Ibid., 97. 37 Hawthorne, The French and Italian Notebooks, 73, 130. 38 Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Marble Faun, or the Romance of Monte Beni (New York: Penguin Books, 1968), 73. 33

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all.”39 This observation reflects this new attitude toward academic sculpture that emerged in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. As sculpture was given more and more scrutiny by a growing number of critics, artists were forced to exhibit more than mere technical proficiency; their works needed to reflect a new attitude toward sculptural production that called for the artist’s deep understanding of media, an ability to exploit the qualities of those media, and the importance of the artist’s own hand in creating sculpture. 40 This shift also coincided with the specialization of the sculptural profession, as it had to accommodate industrialization and new methods of production. By the time Rinehart died in 1874, bronze was increasingly favored over marble as a medium for sculpture because even though it is a reproducible medium, it was seen to embody more directly evidence of the artist’s hand. The relationship between artist and artwork relative to the creative and artistic process was challenged during the early twentieth century by Marcel Duchamp, when he developed the concept of the readymade sculpture, an art form that calls into question the very nature of art. According to Duchamp, a readymade is an everyday object that achieves the status of artwork because an artist designates it so, such as the snow shovel that he titled In Advance of the Broken Arm, or his 1914 Bottle Rack. 41 The snow shovel and bottle rack were not manipulated by the artist in any way; they become works of art solely through Duchamp’s role as an artist and his ideas on artistic concept. This value of the idea behind a work rather than its formal qualities was embraced by many artists in the mid-1960s. In 1967, artist Sol LeWitt published his article “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” in which he sought to define this approach to art making. According to LeWitt: “When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.” 42 This notion of idea as medium opens up and complicates the very definition of art. Today, the category of sculpture is vast and may encompass a variety of media and art forms such as performances, site-specific installations, and even interventions in the digital domain. International artists like Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami maintain large studio workshops that employ a number of artists and technicians to help to realize their artistic concepts. But because of a variety of factors, including scale, media, and

“Royal Academy Exhibition,” London Daily Telegraph May 23, 1879. David J. Getsy, Body Doubles: Sculpture in Britain, 1877-1905, (New Haven: Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, 2004), 5. 41 Glyn Thompson, ‘What Duchamp Actually Wrote,” Art Newspaper 23 (July/ August 2014), p. 38. 42 Sol Lewitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” Artforum 5 (June 1967), p. 79. 39

volume of replication, the collaborative nature of most of their work’s fabrication is not a secret, even though the works bear the artists’ names. For example, Murakami’s Hiropon Factory is integral to his artistic practice, and it is well known that he relies on a number of workers who are carefully trained by him. 43 Additionally, an artist may have only a peripheral role in the production process, either because he or she lacks expertise, or because the scale of the work requires a specialized industrial process. 44 In the 1960s, when public sculpture gained popularity and government funding for such projects increased, fabrication studios became an extension of the traditional artists’ studios. 45 Caroline Jones identifies this period as one of transition from the master artist in the studio overseeing a group of trained artisans, like Rinehart’s studio, to artists as designers who came to rely on outside fabricators; no longer was the traditional studio the site of art creation. 46 These facilities, such as the Mike Smith Studio in London, work with contemporary artists in realizing their artistic visions, from the design stage to the actual fabrication. 47

The practice of a master artist overseeing assistants led to the notion of artist as genius, a concept that originated in the sixteenth century, but which became particularly important in the early nineteenth century... Whether the artist personally oversees his or her own staff or outsources works, this type of studio arrangement is widely accepted in art production, but not without some tensions. 48 Studio assistants may feel unappreciated or unacknowledged by the artist, and artists who regularly have a direct hand in creating

Francesca Gavin, “City Links Highlight Counter Cultural Take on the Urban Experience,” Blueprint, May 2001, 28. 44 Michael Petry, The Art of Not Making: the New Artist/Artisan Relationship (London: Thames and Hudson, 2011), 6. 45 Jonathan Lippincott, Large Scale: Fabricating Sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 2010), 11. 46 See Caroline Jones, Machine in the Studio: Constructing the Postwar American Artist (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1996). 47 Charles Darwent, “I Know a Man Who Does…,” Crafts (September/October 2007), pp. 44-51. 48 Stephen Shaheen, ‘By Proxy’ at James Cohan: Does Anyone ‘Make’Art Anymore?” Blouin Artinfo (January 20, 2015) http://www.blouinartinfo.com/ news/story/1072473/by-proxy-authorship-and-agency-in-contemporary-art (accessed February 9, 2015). 43

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their own works may question the merit behind artworks that are created by individuals other than the artist who signs the work. 49 These issues were recently raised in an exhibition called By Proxy at the James Cohan Gallery in New York in January 2015. The show featured artists whose works are created “by proxy,” or by hands outside of the studio. In conjunction with the exhibition, Brooklyn-based sculptor Stephen Shaheen interviewed curators Jessica Lin Cox and William Pym about the efficacy of farming out studio labor, and he questioned the lack of transparency on the part of some artists regarding their participation in their own art production.50 Artist Michael Petry recently raised these issues in his 2011 book The Art of Not Making: The New Artist/Artisan Relationship, in which he ponders the tie between the creative process and art production: “What is the difference between artist and artisan? How can we distinguish art from craft? Do we even need to?”51 Interestingly, it is in the sphere of contemporary marble carving that such questions may be especially pointed because of the high level of skill required to produce a sculpture. Artists who specialize in carving likely received their training in a manner not unlike Rinehart’s, through an apprenticeship for several years in order to obtain the requisite skills. Carrara continues to be at the heart of the marble industry in Europe, and a number of marble-carving studios still operate today. The Studio Nicoli, founded in 1835 and run by the same family today, is a vibrant workshop that provides studio space for contemporary artists while its skilled workforce fills sculptural commissions from around the world. Although modern technology like electric drills, saws, and chisels, as well as 3D printing processes, may speed up the carving, the studio’s current owner, Francesca Nicoli, believes that the traditional techniques produce the highest aesthetic and technical results.52 While the roughing out may be done by machines, there is no substitute for the delicate hand of the artisan for carving and finishing. The studio currently employs ten full-time carvers, each of whom was trained there. Many of the orders filled by Studio Nicoli come from artists who may design an installation or artwork that includes a marble sculpture, but who lack the capacity or skill to produce the work. As was the case in the nineteenth century and in many collaborative workshops today, the names of the carvers from Studio Nicoli are not listed on the final works.

both historically and today, calls into question issues of artist and authorship, it also may be central to how we categorize the artwork itself. Traditional marble sculptures, such as Rinehart’s Woman of Samaria, reside in the hallowed halls of art museums, temporally and geographically removed from their place of production. And while there is general agreement that such works are exemplars of what we may term the “Fine Arts,” can the same be said for contemporary marble works? Baltimore sculptor Sebastian Martorana maintains a studio in a corner of the Hilgartner Natural Stone Company workshop in Baltimore, Maryland. In addition to creating his own art, such as Yours, Mine and Ours, from 2010, Martorana also repairs stone sculptures and contributes commissioned pieces for other artists’ conceptions and installations. His work is in a number of collections, including the Smithsonian Institution, but not in the Smithsonian American Art Museum, where we find a version of Rinehart’s Sleeping Children; instead, his marble pillow called Impressions, a 2008 memorial to his father-in-law, is housed in the Renwick Museum of American

While the collaborative process for creating marble sculptures,

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See Jason Workman, “Breathing Contemporary Art,” Third Text 25 (September 2011), pp. 515-521. 50 Ibid. 51 Petry, 6. 52 Interview with Francesca Nicoli, Carrara, Italy, 23 May 2014. 49

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Craft.53 In the words of Martorana, in a recent interview: I don’t really think there is much of a difference between art and craf t. They’re all just part of a spectrum, maybe. I mean, I’m definitely a craftsman, but I’m also definitely an artist. And I’m definitely a sculptor, and I’m definitely a painter, and I’m definitely an illustrator. They’re all words for the same thing, really. And they all just kind of exist around this amorphous, intangible, impossible to define thing we call art. Issues of materiality, process, and meaning continue to occupy the art world, as does the function of sculpture and its value, high art versus popular art, artistic identity, authorship, and originality. These issues may be especially relevant now, at a time when many artists work collaboratively, and like Martorana, seek to push against specific designations or labels like sculptor, artisan, or craftsman.54

Like Petry, we may question whether the distinction between art and craft is even necessary today, but such an interrogation forefronts the process by which an artwork is made. In the field of craft, the way an artwork is made is key. In his 2007 book Thinking through Craft, Glen Adamson defines craft: “…it is a way of doing things, not a particular category of thing…skill is the most complete embodiment of craft.” See Glen Adamson, Thinking Through Craft (Berg Publishers, 2007), 3. 54 Josiah McElheny, “Now on Display: Sculpture,” Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin, State of the Art: Contemporary Sculpture (2009), p. 57. 53

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C ATA LOGU E R I N E H A R T â&#x20AC;&#x2122; S ST U DIO : ROUG H ST ON E T O L I V I NG M A R BL E

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Sleeping Children In this finely sculpted work, rough marble is transformed into soft flesh, cushions, and drapery. By Rinehart’s own account, he used live models to create his clay sketches; according to legend, the models for this sculpture were a neighbor’s toddlers, who napped in his studio each afternoon for several weeks. Sleeping Children was the artist’s most popular work, and his studio produced at least nineteen copies. Sleep was

a common euphemism for death in the Victorian era, which witnessed high mortality, particularly among infants. The first version of this work was likely commissioned by wealthy businessman Hugh Sisson in 1859 and now marks his family’s plot in Baltimore’s Green Mount Cemetery.

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WILLIAM HENRY RINEHART (AMERICAN, 1825–74) | CARRARA MARBLE | MODELED 1861 | FROM THE COLLECTION OF C. ASHTON NEWHALL AND ADAIR B. NEWHALL | PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM

Thetis Rinehart modeled Thetis, a water nymph from Greek myth, in the winter of 1861, and his studio produced at least four copies of the subject. This particular version was left unfinished at the time of the artist’s death. According to correspondence, Rinehart had the unusual habit of allowing

his head workman, Leone Clerici, to begin sculptures without an identified patron; Clerici would be paid only when the sculpture was purchased.

rough stone to living marble

Penserosa (Ideal Head) This bust was modeled as early as 1863, and at least seven copies were produced. It was common for sculptors to develop types of busts to represent abstract qualities, in this case melancholy or poetic sadness, and according to Rinehart’s account books, Penserosa could be purchased with or without the head ornamentation. Rinehart was one

of several nineteenth-century sculptors who depicted this subject. It was well known due to John Milton’s poem of the same name, first published in 1645.

rough stone to living marble

W I L L I A M H E N R Y R I N E H A R T (A M E R IC A N , 18 2 5 – 74) | C A R R A R A M A R B L E | C A . 18 6 8 T H E WA LT E R S A R T M U S E U M | PR O B A B LY AC Q U I R E D B Y W I L L I A M T. WA LT E R S A F T E R 18 74 | 2 8 .7 | PH O T O G R A PH C OU R T E S Y O F T H E WA LT E R S A R T M U S E U M

Bust of Mrs. J. Edward Farnum (née Eliza Leiper Smith, 1849–1912)

Bust of the Artist’s Mother: Mrs. Israel Rinehart (née Mary Snader, 1797–1868)

Wealthy Americans visiting Rome would tour sculptors’ studios, view their work, and place commissions. According to Rinehart’s account books, Franco Bruni began pointing this bust in April of 1866. Permanent mementos of such travels were sought that could be displayed prominently in domestic interiors, where they would be seen by others who might have made similar pilgrimages to the artistic sites of Europe. Born in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, Eliza

Farnum (née Leiper Smith) was a resident of both Philadelphia and Baltimore, where she had strong family ties. Her husband, J. Edward Farnum, was a wealthy businessman and a director of the West Chester and Philadelphia Railroad. Unlike the modern clothing featured on the other female busts in this exhibition, Eliza’s garment is composed of a Neoclassical robe draped across her shoulders and chest.

rough stone to living marble

Mary Snader married the farmer Israel Rinehart in 1816, and she gave birth to eight sons. A version of this portrait of his mother was reputedly one of Rinehart’s first sculptures. Rinehart cast at least two plaster versions of this bust

for members of his family and carved a marble version for himself, which likely was acquired by William T. Walters after the sculptor’s death.

rough stone to living marble

W I L L I A M H E N R Y R I N E H A R T (A M E R IC A N , 18 2 5 – 74) | PL A S T E R | 18 6 5 -18 67 | T H E PE A B O DY A R T C O L L E C T IO N | C OU R T E S Y O F T H E M A R Y L A N D C OM M I S S IO N O N A R T I S T IC PR O PE R T Y O F T H E M A R Y L A N D S TAT E A R C H I V E S | M S A S C 4 6 8 0 -2 0 - 016 5 | PH O T O G R A PH C OU R T E S Y O F T H E WA LT E R S A R T M U S E U M

Love Reconciled with Death This is Rinehart’s plaster model for the bronze sculpture Love Reconciled with Death, commissioned by William T. Walters to mark the grave of his wife, Ellen, in Baltimore’s Green Mount Cemetery. Plaster models, cast from an initial clay sketch, or bozzetto, were an important step in the manufacture of bronze and marble sculptures. Plasters such as this one, which was listed in the studio inventory after Rinehart’s death, were displayed as examples of a sculptor’s work. The nineteenth-century author Nathaniel Hawthorne observed that the plaster models appeared dull

next to their marble counterparts, claiming, “there is almost as much difference [between plaster and marble] as between flesh and the spirit.” The difference that Hawthorne notes is actually due to the different ways that plaster and polished marble reflect light. When light hits polished marble, it penetrates beyond the surface before being scattered. This is, in fact, how light behaves when it hits human skin, which means that polished stone has an uncanny resemblance to living flesh, a quality that a skilled carver could manipulate to stunning visual effect.

rough stone to living marble

W I L L I A M H E N R Y R I N E H A R T (A M E R IC A N , 18 2 5 – 74) / C A R R A R A M A R B L E / 18 74 T H E WA LT E R S A R T M U S E U M , G I F T O F M R S . LY M A N DE L A N O, 19 4 8 , 2 8 . 2 0 | PH O T O G R A PH C OU R T E S Y O F T H E WA LT E R S A R T M U S E U M

Portrait of Jennie Walters This bust of Jennie Walters was carved in marble in 1874 shortly before Rinehart’s death. William T. Walters was Rinehart’s most longstanding patron, and he visited the artist’s studio in Rome several times. Rinehart likely modeled the portrait during Jennie’s travels in Europe the previous year, when her father, William T. Walters, was acting as

an honorary commissioner for the United States at the Vienna World’s Fair. The trip was also designed to distract Jennie from a romantic engagement with Warren Delano III. Despite her father’s disapproval, Jennie eventually married Warren in 1876.

rough stone to living marble

W I L L I A M H E N R Y R I N E H A R T (A M E R IC A N , 18 2 5 – 74) | C A R R A R A M A R B L E | 18 6 2 T H E WA LT E R S A R T M U S E U M | C OM M I S S IO N E D B Y W I L L I A M T. WA LT E R S | 2 8 . 8 | PH O T O G R A PH C OU R T E S Y O F T H E WA LT E R S A R T M U S E U M

Bust of Mrs. William T. Walters (née Ellen Harper, 1822–1862) According to Rinehart’s account books, a man named Papavanti was paid for carving this bust of Ellen Walters in May of 1862; Rinehart’s headman, Leone Clerici, was paid for carving the lacework the following November. This bust was perhaps commissioned when William T. Walters and his wife, Ellen, met with Rinehart in Paris in August of 1861, or, more

likely, in Italy during the spring of 1862. Sadly, Ellen died of pneumonia after visiting the International Exhibition in England the following fall. These exhibitions, sometimes called World’s Fairs, were held throughout Europe and the United States during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

rough stone to living marble

Portrait of Ellen Harper Walters This oval portrait shows Ellen Walters, who married William T. Walters in 1846. The way Ellen is presented in Baker’s painting shows marked similarities to Rinehart’s slightly later portrait of her in marble. In each case, she is shown with center-parted hair, which divides into heavy ringlets at the sides of her face; she wears a lace cap over her bun and a V-necked dress trimmed with lace.

Notably, in both works her gaze is slightly averted from the viewer. Like Rinehart, the New York–based artist George Augustus Baker seems to have had a particularly close relationship with the Walters family, judging from the numerous portraits commissioned from him between the late 1850s and 1870s.

rough stone to living marble

F R A N C I S ( F R A N K ) B L AC K W E L L M AY E R (A M E R IC A N , 18 2 7 – 9 9) | OI L O N C A N VA S | 18 6 5 T H E WA LT E R S A R T M U S E U M , AC Q U I R E D B Y W I L L I A M T. WA LT E R S| 37. 16 4 4 | PH O T O G R A PH C OU R T E S Y O F T H E WA LT E R S A R T M U S E U M

Portrait of William Henry Rinehart This painting is a testament to the friendship between Frank Mayer, a Baltimore painter, Rinehart, and William T. Walters, the father of the founder of the Walters Art Museum. The inscription on the back of the work reads “F. B. Mayer, pinxt [meaning painted] 1865, to W. T. Walters, Esq., 1867.” Mayer was an active member of the emerging arts community in

Baltimore in the mid-nineteenth century. This painting was likely given to Walters, an important collector and patron, as a memento and token of esteem.

rough stone to living marble

Bust of William Thompson Walters

Louise Coast Yewell

According to Rinehart’s account book, William T. Walters, father of the founder of the Walters Art Museum, ordered this bust of himself in October 1866. Franco Bruni, who worked in Rinehart’s studio from 1865 to 1870, began the pointing in December 1867. The finishing was likely done by Leoni Clerici, the studio’s headman, who worked for

Rinehart for 16 years, from 1858 until the artist’s death in 1874. The bust was displayed in the parlor of the Walters family townhouse at 5 West Mount Vernon Place and was one of several sculptures by Rinehart that could be seen throughout the home.

rough stone to living marble

This plaster bust of Louise Coast Yewell was never carved in marble. A seam in the plaster running over her shoulders and the top of her head indicates that the clay sketch (bozzetto) was cast into plaster in a mold with two halves that were pieced together. Louise was the wife of landscape painter

George Henry Yewell, an Iowa native who resided in Rome for 11 years beginning in 1867. The Yewells and Rinehart were part of a lively American expatriate community that enjoyed studio visits, parties, and touring Rome and its environs.

rough stone to living marble

CATALOGUE

SECTION TITLE

S E B A S T I A N M A R T O R A N A (A M E R IC A N , B O R N 19 81) | C A R R A R A M A R B L E | S T E E L H A R DWA R E | 2 010 | C OU R T E S Y O F T H E A R T I S T | PH O T O G R A PH C OU R T E S Y O F T H E S M I T H S O N I A N A M E R IC A N A R T M U S E U M

Yours , Mine and Ours Like Rinehart in the 1850s, contemporary artist Sebastian Martorana learned how to carve marble through an apprenticeship at a local stone yard. Using nearly the same process as a nineteenth-century sculptor, albeit with the addition of some contemporary power tools, Martorana is able to transform rough stone into what appears to be soft, plush cloth. According to the artist, Yours, Mine and Ours, a set of

three towels carved in marble, represents his relationship with his wife and their son and the nature of relationships in general. While the group does allude to physical and psychological closeness, the choice of common bath towels as a subject for highly finished work in marble is a wryly humorous, contemporary touch.

rough stone to living marble

2. Gallery of The Walters Art Museum | Baltimore | Maryland

CR EDITS & ACK NOW LEDGMEN TS R I N E H A R T ’ S ST U DIO : ROUG H ST ON E T O L I V I NG M A R BL E

The Walters’ exhibition has been generously supported by Nanci and Ned Feltham and the Helen M. Hughes Trust. WE ALSO THANK THE FOLLOWING LENDERS TO THE EXHIBITION:

Mr. Stiles Tuttle Colwill Sebastian Martorana Maryland Institute College of Art Maryland State Archives C. Ashton Newhall and Adair B. Newhall Peabody Institute Archives, Johns Hopkins University PROJECT TEAM: Curators: Jenny Carson (MICA) & Jo Briggs Project Manager: Kirsten MacKenzie Designer: Ashley Boycher Registrar: Danielle Bennett COLLECTIONS TECHNICIANS: Mike McKee, Craig Bowen & Jared Paolini Educator: Rebecca Sinel Conservator: Meg Craft Development: Ashley Mancinelli Publications: Charles Dibble & Jenn Paulson Production Manager: Asa Osborne Exhibition Graphics: Susan Wallace Marketing Graphics: Johanna Biehler Technology: Jim Maza

This research was made possible through a Senior Post Doctoral Fellowship from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and a Capitol Fellowship from the U.S. Capitol Historical Society. Special thanks to the Peabody Archives, Susan Badder and Francesca Nicoli and the Studio Nicoli, Carrara, Italy.

600 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21201

rough stone to living marble

FOREWORD: FROM MICA / THE WALTERS

INTRODUCTION

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

CATALOGUE

PROCESS / INTERVIEWS

INSTALLATION / EXHIBITION

EDS EVENTS

EDS STATEMENT

CREDITS / ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

FORE WORD: FROM MIC A / THE WA LTER S A L E T T E R F R OM S A M U E L HOI / J U L I A M A R C I A R I - A L E X A N DE R

March 9, 2015

his catalog documents t wo inter woven ex hibitions feat uring the work of Mar yland sculptor William Henry Rinehart (1825 – 1874)—and underscores the shared commitment to collaboration by our two institutions. HAND / MADE at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a contemporary response to Rinehart’s Studio: Rough Stone to Living Marble, at the Walters Art Museum. Both exhibitions reveal the tools, processes, and labor required to create commissioned works of sculpture. The curators ask audiences to examine their assumptions about artistic authenticity, and to consider the relationships between artists and the skilled workers who bring their visions to fruition. These shows emerged through a partnership between the Walters Art Museum and MICA’s year-long Exhibition Development Seminar (EDS). Students, curators, professors, and designers came together to engage new audiences and to link the nineteenth century to the twenty-first. Walters team members from a wide spectrum of expertise mentored students from MICA, helping them to develop audience-focused programming and experience professional life at the museum firsthand. In turn, the MICA students brought contemporary artists into the conversation, working with them to reflect on Rinehart’s legacy in Baltimore.

rs e n s ig e to d d d n n a a , s s e r t.” c s o n s r e s i fi d yof e u t r a n p e s, ew tw r n o e t e h a g t ga r y t o ur c n , e s e n t h e r t o ce n t u d u “ St e toget teenth e c a m th e n i n l in k

Rinehart, a graduate of MICA and a favored artist and lifelong friend of the Walters family, became a pivotal figure in the history of both institutions. Rinehart modeled busts of several Walters’ family members, and his works were among William T. Walters earliest acquisitions. Today the Walters Art Museum contains an extensive collection of Rinehart’s exquisite sculptures. After the artist’s death in 1874, MICA’s Rinehart School of Sculpture was established in 1896 with funds from his estate.

Samuel Hoi President / Maryland Institute College of Art

& Julia Marciari-Alexander Andrea B. and John H. Laporte Director of the Walters Art Museum

This collaboration between the Walters and MICA honors tradition by asking a young generation of cultural producers to commission original works of art, inspired by art of the past, and to connect with audiences in Baltimore and beyond. We look forward to future collaborations that energize the Walters’ collections with contemporary interventions, bring historic works into dialogue with the present, and foster the talents of students. For their contributions to this project, the Walters Art Museum thanks Nanci and Ned Feltham and the Helen M. Hughes Trust. MICA’s exhibitions are supported by a grant from the Maryland State Arts Council, an agency of the Department of Business and Economic Development. Additional support for HAND / MADE was provided by Parkhurst Dining and Friends of EDS.

HAND / MADE 2015

INTRODUCTION

IN T RODUC TION MICRO-SYSTEMS...IN WHICH A POSITION CAN BE ASSUMED—NOT A S YS T E M T H AT NECE S S A RILY H A S IN T E RN A L S TA BILIT Y FOR ALL ETERNIT Y, BUT JUST ENOUGH TO ALLOW YOU TO OPERATE NOW AND A LIT TLE AHE AD IN TIME. THEN IT BECOMES ABOUT HOW YOU CONNECT THESE MICRO-SYSTEMS TO ONE ANOTHER. A ND THAT, IN T URN, IS A QUE S TION OF IDENTIT Y A ND SEL F.

B Y L OU Z H A NG

The skills required of an artist have expanded far beyond a mastery of technique or mater ial.

hen I first heard the term “pointing machine,” I imagined a mechanical extension of a human finger—an apparatus that gestures towards. A point ing mach ine m ight be hel met-l i ke, controlling brainwaves for careful selecting—an articulation of a specific choosing process. Perhaps it acts as a swarm, many tiny spindles that surround and encase an object.

as artistic labor. Since then, the premise that authorship becomes contested when artists employ fabricators or studio assistants to produce their work has been difficult to uphold. Conceptual art of the 1960s and 1970s further minimized the necessity of an artist’s hand by prioritizing the initial concept over the execution or making of the work. According to Sol Lewitt in his Paragraphs on Conceptual Art: “The idea becomes the machine that makes the art.” 1 Thus conceptual artists were no longer dependent on specific technical skills or any level of craftsmanship to bring a work into existence.

In reality, a pointing machine is a tool, an advancement of technology circa the mid-eighteenth century. As demonstrated in Sebastian Martorana’s contribution to the exhibition HAND / MADE, a pointing machine is a series of measuring devices: t h ree - d imensiona l ca lipers to ma ke precise one -to - one comparisons. The distance between these two points is equal to the distance between those two points; this depth is equal to that depth. It doesn’t scale, mirror, or transform. It’s a tool for the replication of a form created with one medium in another specific medium; its purpose is to translate works in malleable materials like plaster or clay into materials that can’t easily shape-shift, such as wood or stone.

Since the 1980s, conceptual art has become assimilated into the mainstream and much of the discourse around contemporary art is in relation or opposition to the tenets of deskilling, appropriation, and the readymade. However, outside of the specialized discourse of theorists, art historians, and critics, the general public remains attached to a work of art as being a direct expression of an artist’s unique hand. Beyond these two narratives is another dialogue, both intimate and practical, between artists and the art they make.

In the twenty-first century, technology has continued to advance exponentially—further augmenting the artist’s hand to be faster and more precise. We are able to print in 3D, use precise lasers to cut and engrave, choreograph industrial sewing machines, and use programs to create virtual worlds.

Artists and arts educators still struggle with both the role of craftsmanship and the nature of authorship in their own creative practices. Ultimately artists determine for themselves what labor is artistic labor and what labor is productive labor. An artist may draw a clear distinction between the conception of a work and its production or implementation, taking an active role in designing a project and outsourcing the execution to better-equipped or more skilled fabricators. Another artist may desire a consistent dialogue with her or his processes and materials, expecting a series of pertinent decisions to result from the interaction.

HAND / MADE brings together historical and contemporary tools for the production and reproduction of works of art. This exhibition was collaboratively envisioned, researched, curated, designed, and presented by the students of the Exhibition Development Seminar (EDS) class at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). In addition to featuring Martorana’s Sam the Eagle, EDS invited Annet Couwenberg, Nancy Daly, Maren Hassinger, Megan Van Wagoner, and Richard Vosseller to contribute an existing work as well as commissioned each of the five artists to produce a new work in dialogue with William Henry Rinehart’s Sleeping Children. In asking contemporary artists to respond to Rinehart’s most popular sculpture, replicated many times with the help of studio assistants, EDS aims to draw attention to issues of authorship.

A group of artists may choose to work collaboratively and share artistic labor. In some instances individual artists within a group may even elect to remain anonymous, subsuming their own identities into that of the collective. Artists may expand their practices outside of the studio in the form of socially engaged or interventionist work that incorporates the contributions of non-artists or directly involves communities. Perhaps the authorit y of the artist becomes blurred when a work is produced through significant collaboration with practitioners in other fields.

Marcel Duchamp first coined the term “readymade” in 1915, claiming the process of intentionally choosing a common object for aesthetic contemplation—essentially pointing—

While provoking varying degrees of debate, all these practices are

—ANNA ENGBERG-PEDERSEN dictated by an artist’s intention and do not directly call into question a work’s authorship. Borrowing a term from the corporate sphere, artists are making executive decisions. Increasingly, the modes of artistic production share structural similarities with corporate models and strategies. The skills required of an artist have expanded far beyond a mastery of technique or material. In addition to process-specific or medium-specific courses traditionally taught in art school, arts educators now teach professional development. Such courses aim to prepare emerging artists for art making as a career. As artists’ roles become professionalized, they begin to take on tasks more often associated with entrepreneurs, creative directors, managers, administrators, designers, strategic planners, market researchers, or quality control inspectors. Beyond the production of their work, artists are now responsible for all aspects of their art enterprises. This can be both empowering and discouraging in the volume of learning, research, and practice required to sustain an existence as an artist. In adopting these expanded roles, artists may relinquish the intimate contact with the transformation of material that in the past has been a signifier of authorship. Rather than lament the shift away from artistic specialization, Studio Olafur Eliasson embraces w ide-ranging skill sets and cross-disciplinar y dialogue. In collaboration with t he Da n ish-Icela nd ic a r tist Ola f u r Eliasson, a rch itec ts, painters, educators, theorists, administrators, technicians, and craftspeople participate in spatial experiments, architectural design, the production of large-scale art installations, archiving, publication, and the running of an art school. Anna Engberg-Pedersen, the in-house critic, describes the coalescing of disciplines at Studio Olafur Eliasson as “micro-systems...in which a position can be assumed–not a system that necessarily has internal stability for all eternity, but just enough to allow you to operate now and a little ahead in time. Then it becomes about how you connect these micro-systems to one another. And that, in turn, is a question of identity and self.” 2

This idea of micro-systems offers a compelling model of expanded authorship as an open and transformative network. Such a structure may resemble the Internet, a web of constantly shifting systems that interact with other systems. Multiple artists or authors contribute content, not necessarily in response to each other, but always in response to the system. Such a micro-system may resemble a collaborative project such as EDS in which students organize into teams around activities such as curation, exhibition design, graphic design, programming, and project coordination. While the works presented in HAND / MADE reaffirm an artist’s authorship as intact—undiminished by the incorporation of new fabrication means, the aid of studio assistants, or the participation of performers— the format and collaborative ethos of the EDS course offer opportunities to investigate authorship as collaborative, discursive, and nonlinear. New innovations will continue to broaden the definitions of making, challenging what it means for anything to be handmade. In ou r d ig ita l a ge of socia l net works, open sou rce software, and infinite apps, technolog y is changing human interaction. T hese shif ts a re redef ining how we identif y ourselves and engage with others, creating a fitting climate for musings on authorship in contemporary art. Lu Zhang is an artist / part-time faculty member at MICA, and the Business Manager at The Contemporary, a nomadic non-collecting art museum in Baltimore.

Sol Lewitt, “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art,” Artforum Vol. 5, (Summer 1967), 80.

Alex Coles, The Transdisciplinary Studio (Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2012), 172.

HAND / MADE 2015

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

CUR ATORIA L S TATEMEN T B Y A DE N I K E A DE L E K A N / L I Z Z I SK A L K A / A N N I E W I L SE Y

Contemporary art discourse encourages viewers to adopt a more nuanced understanding of exchanges between artists, labor, and technology.

sculpture is rarely the result of a simple interaction bet ween a r tist a nd med iu m. In t he ex hibition H A ND / M A DE, the 2 01 4-15 Ex hibition Development Semina r ( EDS) at t he Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) explores the complexities of the processes by which artists, their visions, and their materials come together to form a work of art. For centuries, artists have found it necessary to collaborate in order to satisfy the demands of their patrons. The volume and intensit y of the labor involved in the creation of sculpture, especially in bronze casting and marble carving, has traditionally required artists to employ assistants and use specialized tools. Although technology has evolved and the range of resources available to artists has expanded dramatically, many contemporary artists still rely on collaborative processes. Today, rather than working with traditional modeling tools, a sculptor might use social media or digital imaging—or might outsource production to professional art fabricators. These processes, old and new, have empowered artists to expand their practices, but have also put even greater distance between creator and creation. In the past, the artist was regarded as the sole creator of an artwork; once the work was completed, the labor of skilled assistants was largely unacknowledged. Contemporary art discourse encourages viewers to adopt a more nuanced understanding of exchanges between artists, labor, and technology.

In fact, Rinehart’s participation in the creation of his sculptures was somewhat limited. His concept for a sculpture would take shape when he created a small clay model. This model was translated into a life-size plaster and then into marble by the craftsmen he employed. While Rinehart oversaw each stage of the process and was involved in the perfection and completion of the works, other hands performed the bulk of the labor. Despite this separation between the initial conception and the physical creation of his work, artistic tradition does not record the names of Rinehart’s workmen. Rinehart is even credited for pieces carved in his studio after his death. The collaborative nature of Rinehart's sculpting practice inspired the EDS class to commission new works of art in order to further complicate the relationship between artist and art. The class asked contemporary multidisciplinary artists Annet Couwenberg, Nancy Daly, Maren Hassinger, Megan Van Wagoner, and Richard Vosseller to each provide two pieces: an existing work and a work created for this show. The existing works typify the materials and processes these artists employ in their studio practices. The newly commissioned pieces open a conversation with the work and legacy of William Henry Rinehart. Each of the five contemporary artists has created a piece in response to Rinehart’s most reproduced sculpture, Sleeping Children. The piece was originally commissioned as a memorial in Green Mount Cemetery for the children of Baltimore businessman Hugh Sisson, and loved for its sentimentality and its convincing illusion of soft forms. 2 As in the marble sculptures carved by Rinehart’s team, the works appearing in this show began with Rinehart’s vision. HAND / MADE asks its audience to consider the extent of the role Rinehart played in the creation of both his own works and the works that EDS has commissioned. Perhaps, in fostering this collaboration, EDS also shares the responsibility of authorship.

T he center piece of t he H A N D / M A DE show is Sl ee p i n g Children, a marble sculpture by Mar yland native William Henr y Rinehart. Born in 1825 in the town of Union Bridge, R inehart executed many commissions during his lifetime for notable Baltimore patrons. Rinehart studied at MICA in the 1840s; his estate would eventually found MICA’s Rinehart School of Sculpture in 1896. He also studied classical sculpture in Rome with the support of William T. Walters, whose collection would eventually become the heart of Baltimore’s Walters Art Museum.

Like Rinehart, each of the artists appearing in this show has a connection to MICA. Each has been part of MICA’s history as a student, faculty member, or, in some cases, both. Through their connections with MICA, these artists have contributed to the development and expansion of Baltimore’s art culture. EDS has linked Rinehart to the five contemporary artists in HAND / MADE as a visual representation of MICA's continuing influence on the city.

Like his nineteenth-century contemporaries, Rinehart was able to meet the demand for his work by employing craftsmen who aided in the transformation of raw material to finished product. Visitors to Rinehart’s studio in Rome might have been surprised by the extent to which a team of skilled workers brought his v ision to fr uition. Records show that, over f if teen years, nineteen different workmen played a role in Rinehart’s studio. 1 1

Jenny Carson, “From Rough Stone to Living Marble: William Henry Rinehart’s Roman Workshop” (paper presented at the Fellows Lectures in American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, April 11 - 13, 2012).

“Sleeping Children,” Smithsonian American Art Museum, accessed January 8, 2015, http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=21002.

DURING THE HAND / MADE EXHIBITION, VISITORS WERE ASKED TO COMMENT ON THE QUESTION OF AUTHORSHIP BY FILLING LABELED JARS WITH GLASS MARBLES.

The five artists were also chosen for the diversity of their artistic practices. Their work reflects some of the dramatic changes that have taken place in the field of sculpture since Rinehart’s death. 3D printing is one of the most significant tools to emerge in art making in the last century. First developed in the 1980s as an efficient means of creating prototypes for product development, it was quickly adopted by artists for its ability to accomplish technical feats beyond the power of human hands.3 Unlike traditional carving methods, 3D printing is an additive process in which thin coats of a material, usually plastic, are layered on top of one another to build an object.

Studio assistants help her make the best use of these tools. By combining the old medium with new technology, Couwenberg examines the impact of the digital on the conceptual content of a physical object.

Annet Couwenberg uses such technology to explore the connection between digital craft and fiber arts. Her work draws on traditional embroidery forms and cultural elements such as the Dutch ruff led collar. The new technologies that Couwenberg uses range from laser cutting to 3D scanning and printing.

As Rinehart did with the reclining figures in Sleeping Children, Megan Van Wagoner freezes idealized forms and soft materials into solid, enduring moments. Additionally, like Rinehart, she spins off multiples of prototypical pieces and forms. However, she achieves these forms with glass blowing and by casting in

Richard Vosseller gives intangible phenomena—smoke, water, and the fluid motions of boxing and ballet dancing—physical existence, often in the form of large wooden sculptures. He, too, uses 3D scanning software to create objects that exist in the real world. His use of technology and the scale of these sculptures necessitate collaborating with digital artists and skilled physical labor.

“History of 3D Printing,” 3D Printing Industry, accessed January 3, 2015 http://3dprintingindustry.com/3d-printing-basics-free-beginners-guide/history/.

HAND / MADE 2015

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

porcelain rather than carving marble. In Van Wagoner’s work, vegetables signify wealth and value. Her luminous potatoes rest on a porcelain pillow in an unlikely evocation of Rinehart’s funerary tribute. Nancy Daly’s content and use of materials are derived from the digital age. Using virtual or mechanical systems, she brings experiences that usually exist only online into the gallery space. In the series # (hashtag), Daly comments on social media’s distortion of reality. She asks the viewer to photograph small objects that are mostly white, save for small strategically painted patches of bright color. When captured at a specific angle, these brightly colored parts are invisible. Until audiences post their photos to Instagram, the piece is incomplete. Maren Hassinger addresses contemporary issues of gender and race using media that has only recently become part of the field of sculpture. Originally trained in dance, she often blends aspects of performance, film, and sculpture. In the 2005 installation The River, Hassinger used an arrangement of debris to echo the themes in a video describing her family’s past. Some of her performances, like Women’s Work, require the participation of others. This interactivity and collaborative spirit amplify her message and directly implicate her audience. In addition to the work of these artists, a sixth contemporary sculptor provides insight into the carving methods used in Rinehart’s studio. Three iterations of Sam the Eagle by marble sculptor Sebastian Martorana demonstrate the multiple steps involved in the creation of a Rinehart marble. Martorana also creates models before carving a final image in marble, but in a contemporary twist, he utilizes 3D printing in addition to clay. Here, a plaster, a 3D printed, and a marble version of Sam the Eagle illustrate the use of a pointing device. The pointing device uses a series of connections to make replication an exact process. This instrument was essential to the translation of model into final marble for both Martorana and Rinehart. Although similar devices like calipers and plumb lines had been used since antiquity, the pointing device was cutting edge technology in Rinehart’s time. Like 3D scanning and printing today, it was the nineteenth century’s most accurate means of reproducing an object. In order to respect and to underscore the variety of perspectives that exist around authorship and collaboration, EDS asked each artist to tell his or her own story through a video interview. These conversations, included in the gallery, have allowed EDS to explore different attitudes and provide insight into the connections between the works of art and the artists’ hands. The artists in HAND / MADE represent a few of the many types of creator/ creation relationships that exist in contemporary art. In commissioning these responses to Sleeping Children, EDS has created another kind of relationship, linking the past and the present, the traditional and the new. By focusing on the physical process of art making, HAND / MADE encourages audiences to examine their knowledge of and attitudes toward the artist’s role in creation.

HAND / MADE 2015

ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES

A NNE T C OU W ENBERG

N A NCY DA LY

M A REN H A S SINGER

SEBA S TIA N M A R TOR A N A

MEGA N VA N WAGONER

RICH A RD VOS SEL L ER

A R T I S T B IO G R A PH Y

Annet Couwenberg is a Baltimore-based fiber artist. Born in the Ne t h e rl a n d s , s h e r e c e i v e d h e r B FA in Textile Arts and an educational degree from the De Windroos School for Textiles in Rotterdam. Shortly afterwards, she earned an MFA in Textile Arts from Syracuse University, and a second MFA from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. She served as the chair of the Fiber Department at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) from 1989 until 2008, and she has earned individual artist awards from the Maryland State and Ohio State Art Councils. Couwenberg uses traditional fiber media, 3D printing, and laser cutting in her practice. Her work is represented in collections around the country and internationally.

Nancy Daly earned her BFA from James Madison University and her MFA in Photographic and Electronic Media from MICA. She assisted in teaching foundations and art history cou rses at MICA and currently teaches Electronic Media and Culture; she also works as a professional graphic designer. Daly was selected as a semi-finalist for the Trawick Prize of the Bethesda Contemporar y Art Awards, and received a Photographic a nd Electronic Med ia Mer it Fellowship from MICA. She has participated in solo and g roup ex hibitions at The Foundr y for A rt, Design + Culture in Cohoes, NY, and the (e)merge Art Fair in Washington, DC. Daly examines the effect of internet culture on interpersonal interactions, creating machines and experiences that give physical existence to digital phenomena.

M a r e n H a s s i n g e r, b o r n i n Los A n g ele s , s t u d ie d d a nc e a nd s c u lp t u re at B e n n i n g ton C ol le g e b e fore comple t i n g a n M FA i n f ib er a r t s at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). In her performance and video work she explores the relation of the body to three-dimensional space; she incorporates nontraditional materials into her sculptural work. She has been recognized by the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Gottlieb Foundation, and the Women’s Caucus for the Arts, among others. Since 1997, Hassinger has directed the Rinehart School of Sculpture at MICA. Under Hassinger’s leadership, this program has become a widely acknowledged center of sculptural innovation.

Seba s t ia n Ma r tora n a is a ma rble sculptor work ing in Ba ltimore, M D. He studied illustration and sculpture at Sy racuse Universit y before taking an apprenticeship at a stone shop in the Washington, DC area. Martorana earned his MFA at the Rinehart School of Sculpture at MICA. Upon graduating, he founded Atlantic Custom Carving, LLC—a sculpture, carving, and design company. He maintains his studio in the Hilgartner Natural Stone Company in Baltimore and teaches illustration at MICA.

Megan Van Wagoner is a ceramicist and sculptor from Ohio who lives and work s i n t he Wa sh i n g ton , D C a rea . She earned a BFA in Ceramics from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and an MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art at MICA. Van Wagoner has exhibited her work across the mid-Atlantic reg ion a nd b e y ond ; i n 2 0 0 9 , s h e r e c e i ve d a Ma r yland A r ts Council Indiv idua l Artist Award. She now shares a studio at DC Glassworks a nd Sculpt ure S t u d io s i n H y a t t s v i l l e , M a r y l a n d . Va n Wa g one r c ondu c t s wor k s h o p s a nd presentations on cer a m ic techn iques a nd is a professor of a r t and design at Montgomery College in Silver Spr ing, Maryland.

Richard Vosseller is a sculptor from the Washington, DC area. He earned his BFA from MICA before moving to New York. T here, he ex panded his studio practice and worked as an assistant to the sculptor Mihai Popa. He received his MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute. Vosseller has taught at M IC A , Montgomer y College, a nd t he Un iversit y of Ma r yla nd Un iversit y College, where he ser ves as t he Director of Graphic Communication a nd t he A r ts . He h a s b een com m is sioned to create public projects such as the re-design of Rocky Run Park in Arlington, VA . In 2011, he was named a semifinalist for the Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize.

HAND / MADE 2015

CATALOGUE

COMMIS SIONED WORKS T he f i ve a r t i s t s c om m i s sione d b y t he st udents of EDS to create new works for HAND / M ADE were given a photograph of W i l l ia m Hen r y R i neh a r t ’s Sl ee p i n g C h i l d r e n a nd t h ree sp ec i f ic at ion s . I n addition to responding to the appearance, subject, or production of Sleeping Children, e a ch a r t is t w a s encou r a g ed to d ispl ay originality in choice of material and style, and spur a conversation about methods of artistic construction, production, and / or creation. Once the ar tists began to work on their pieces, they were asked to periodically check in with the class in order to illuminate their creative process and work methods. The commission was purposefully left vague to allow each artist the ability to fully explore his or her reactions to this late nineteenth century marble sculpture. The point was not to create carbon copies of Rinehart’s work; instead, EDS wanted to see Rinehart’s language in each artist’s voice.

RICHARD VOSSELLER / COMMISSIONED WORK

C ATA LOGUE PHO T O S B Y JACK S OROK I N

COMMISSIONED WORK EXISTING WORK

MAREN HASSINGER / EXISTING WORK

ANNET COUWENBERG / EXISTING WORK

NANCY DALY / COMMISSIONED WORK

HAND / MADE 2015

MEGAN VAN WAGONER / COMMISSIONED WORK HAND / MADE 2015

CATALOGUE

Sam the Eagle (2014) Clay, plaster, feathers 9” x 12” x 12”

CATALOGUE

Sam the Eagle (2014) 3D printed plaster 11” x 11” x 19.5”

Sturgeon Bone (2014) 505 layers of laser cut buckram 12” x 7” x 5.5”

Legacy (2014) Laser cut buckram, CNC router polyethylene, origami, screws 15.5” x 30” x 30”

SEBA S TIA N M A R TOR A N A

A NNE T COU W ENBERG

PHO T O S B Y JACK S OROK I N

PHO T O S PROV I DE D B Y T H E A R T IST

ebastian Martorana’s work offers a contemporary take on traditional marble carving. Sam the Eagle was developed in three stages, mimicking Rinehart’s own practice, while still employing modern technologies and reflecting changing methods in sculptural practice. Developing a marble statue is a multi-step process that begins with making models from cheaper, more pliable materials—typically clay or plaster. Similar to how Rinehart would use clay to form his figures, Martorana created the first version of Sam the Eagle with plaster and real feathers. After finishing this model, Martorana scanned it and created an enlarged version of the piece using a 3D printer. While this digital process allowed the original

Sam the Eagle (2014) Marble 11” x 11” x 19.5”

model to be preserved, the same was not true for Rinehart’s assistants. They would have created a plaster mold of the clay model, destroying the clay in the process. The final marble version of Sam the Eagle was created using a traditional pointing device, which allowed Martorana to reproduce the exact proportions of his 3D printed, scaled-up model in stone. The character Sam the Eagle is the voice of reason amongst the chaos of the Muppets’ world. He functions as a satirical take on stereotypical conservative views. The depiction of this muppet in marble, in a manner reminiscent of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, is a humorous, tongue-in-cheek gesture.

HAND / MADE 2015

Figure 1: Sturgeon Bone was Annet Couwenberg’s first experiment in layering cut fabric to form a 3D object. She was inspired by her work with the National Museum of Natural Histor y a s pa r t of t he Sm it hson ia n A r t ist a nd Resea rch Fel lows h ip. S he w a t c he d s c ie nt i s t s sl ic e f i s h s p e c i me n s i nt o vertical layers and examine them for research, and adopted this method of work ing for her scu lpt u ra l practice —but i n re verse. She wou ld a ssemble sl ices of a mater ia l i nto a f in ished 3 D for m— a met hod t hat she later used in her interpretation of Sleeping Children.

Figure 2: Legacy explores the repetitive movement of stitching through various alterations of pattern, size, and orientation. The artist has created a complex form by combining traditional origami folding techniques with innovative technology, such as the CNC router used for this piece. Couwenberg looks to Dutch ruffled collars and other items of clothing in her body of work. She utilizes modern technologies, putting a contemporary spin on traditional subjects. She is interested in overlapping cultures, and often incorporates production methods from different traditions into her work. Though Couwenberg draws inspiration from wearable clothing, most of her pieces are designed for a gallery setting, blurring the line between fine art and craft.

HAND / MADE 2015

CATALOGUE

Sleeping Children I (2014) Laser engraved industrial felt 20.5” x 25.5” x 3”

Sleeping Babies I (2014) Laser engraved industrial felt 20.5” x 25.5” x 3”

Sleeping Babies II (2014) Laser engraved industrial felt, convex glass, maple 3.5” x 12” x 12”

Sleeping Children III (2015) Laser cut cardboard 15” x 32” x 11”

Sleeping Children IV (2015) Laser cut industrial felt 15” x 32” x 11”

A NNE T COU W ENBERG

PHO T O S PROV I DE D B Y T H E A R T IST

Figures 1, 2, and 3: Annet Couwenberg used a laser engraver to create portraits and precious objects that reflect the sentimentality that Rinehart’s sculpture expresses. She uses felt to reflect the cloth and the soft skin of the children. Couwenberg has taken an object that creates the illusion of soft malleability in marble and reversed the process, giving cloth the substantial presence of stone.

Figure 1 and 2: Annet Couwenberg replied to the Sleeping Children commission by visiting the original sculpture at Green Mount Cemetery. The grave marker was too badly worn to use as a reference, so Couwenberg photographed the version in MICA’s collection, transferred the photos to 3D modeling software, and then printed the model. Within the software, she bisected the model into 105 vertical layers. Once Couwenberg had the desired layers, she then used a laser cutter to slice each layer from a section of felt before reconstructing this re-imagined version of Sleeping Children by hand. The individual 2D layers went to form a 3D object, acting like a pattern for clothing.

HAND / MADE 2015

CATALOGUE

#Wildlife (2013) Plastic moose, spray paint 3” x 1” x 2”

#TheKing (2013) Elvis figurine, acrylic paint 1” x 1.5” x 3”

Stargazer (2015) Plastic 32” x 32” x 32”

N A NCY DA LY

PHO T O S B Y X I AO T I A N YA NG

Figure 1 and 2: Nancy Daly’s (hashtag) series examines how smartphone users engage and remember the world via the popular Instagram app. When viewed through the lens of a camera phone at a very specific height and angle, these two tiny figurines appear to be entirely white—despite the fact that portions of each sculpture are painted a different color. is participatory: The work is not complete until the viewer photographs each statue, applies an Instagram filter, and posts the resulting digital, two-dimensional marker of the gallery viewing experience.

Figure 1: For her Sleeping Children commission, Nancy Daly created a large spherical sculpture constructed of many small casts of a porcelain Hummel figurine. Hummel figurines were originally kitschy, mass-produced objects designed in the 1930s, and based on the sketches of Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel. They became extremely popular in the wake of World War II as countless American soldiers sent them home from Europe. In recent years, some Hummels have been reproduced in limited editions to commemorate U.S. wars and military actions. The base of the figurine that Daly cast originally read: “Looking for a peaceful world.”

HAND / MADE 2015

CATALOGUE

Maren Hassinger, Ava Hassinger, and Nicholas Buchanan Wind (2013) Super 8 film and video 5 minutes

Shot in East Hampton, Long Island. An idyll. Special thanks to our friends Cristian Majcherski and Priscilla Heine.

Women’s Work (2015) Maren Hassinger and students Live performance

M A REN H A S SINGER

PHO T O B Y JACK S OROK I N

PHO T O B Y K I R ST E N M A R I E WA L SH

Figure 1: In Wind, Maren Hassinger becomes both creator and object. She explores the relationship of the performer’s body to a three-dimensional space and to forces of nature. In this piece, Hassinger appears with her daughter; both women wear billowing white garments and stand near a body of water. Strong winds become an agent in the piece, activating both the cloth that the two women wear and the surface of the water behind them. The artist challenges the traditional definition of sculpture as the creation of static three-dimensional objects by participating in an activity in which elements are visible and invisible, tangible and intangible, and coexist together in the same space and time.

Figure 1: Maren Hassinger responded to Sleeping Children with a reprise of an earlier performance called Women’s Work. For this restaging, Hassinger and the 2015 and 2016 classes of MICA’s Rinehart School of Sculpture spun strips of newspaper to collaboratively produce a single object in plain view of a Walters Art Museum audience.

HAND / MADE 2015

Weaving has long been a feminine, domestic, and private practice. In this case, Hassinger invited her diverse group of pupils to weave publicly, in a museum setting, to produce a fine art object. Like Rinehart’s sculptures, the piece results from the labor of many different people. Hassinger and her students offer a reflection on Rinehart’s legacy—both his rich art practice and the school founded by his estate.

CATALOGUE

Monument (To Failure) (2014) Steel 74” x 26” x 26”

RICH A RD VOS SEL L ER

RICH A RD VOS SELL ER

PHO T O B Y X I AO T I A N YA NG

PHO T O B Y JACK S OROK I N

Figure 1: Monument is a human-scale steel sculpture. The piece takes the form of a crumpled rectangular prism, bending slightly in the middle. The folds give the sculpture a sense of motion, recalling a sculptural figure standing at ease in a classical contrapposto pose. Richard Vosseller enjoys the similarities between art and architecture, a tension that he brings to light in his large-scale sculptures. He strives to find a balance between rigid structure and fluid compositions by playing with scale, materials, and movement. Vosseller is particularly interested in the concept of failure and finds beauty in collapsing human forms and architectural ruins.

Rinehart Remix / A Meditation / Autumn Wind (2015) Locally sourced wood, lumber, steel, plywood, vinyl siding, rice paper, drywall, fabric, galvanized screws, paint 43” x 156” x 108”

HAND / MADE 2015

Figure 1: In response to the Sleeping Children commission, Vosseller photographed R inehart’s sculpture at Green Mount Cemeter y. With 3D modeling software, he created a digital sketch from which he could build his sculpture, breaking the image down into f lat planes. The structure mimics the composition and form of Sleeping Children through ty pical architectural materials while still retaining the idea of rest.

HAND / MADE 2015

CATALOGUE

Three Bushel Monte (2012) Slip-cast clay, cast aluminum 18” x 36” x 96”

Buried Babes (2015) Blown glass, clay 14” x 26” x 20”

MEGA N VA N WAGONER

PHO T O B Y X I AO T I A N YA NG

Figure 1: For Three Bushel Monte, the artist cast three wooden baskets in aluminum. The contents of two of the baskets are not visible, but the third overflows with cast ceramic ears of corn. This piece reflects on rapidly changing agricultural practices and the transformation of food through advances in technology into something mass-produced and mysterious.

Figure 1: In response to the Sleeping Children commission, Megan Van Wagoner chose a subject that often appears in her work: cast vegetables. Here, potatoes created with blown glass sit nestled in a clay pillow. Van Wagoner, with the help of an assistant, blew dyed glass into plaster casts of potatoes. She stacked the resulting forms on a pillow that she molded herself. The composition is reminiscent of Rinehart’s Sleeping Children. Both the children and the potatoes are resting peacefully on a pillow, designating them as precious and cherished. Additionally, the Latin na me f o r p o t a t o e s i s c a r v e d i n t o t h e s c u lp t u r e , a s i f i n s o m e s o r t o f m e m o r i a l . W h i l e t h e p i e c e might initia lly seem like a humorous gest ure— equating children w ith potatoes—Va n Wagoner attaches emotional and cultural significance to agriculture and food, and sees vegetables as embodying memories of place and comfort.

HAND / MADE 2015

ARTIST INTERVIEWS

IT’S A VERY HUMAN THING. I MEAN, E V E RY BODY GE TS W R A P P E D IN CLOTH...[ YOU’RE BORN AND] THE FIRST THING YOU FEEL ON YOUR BODY IS CLOTH...

If you had to assign you, the EDS class, and Rinehart a role, which would be the artist, the patron, and the fabricator? AC: I would not have done this had you not invited me. I feel we are all collaborating. I’m collaborating with you as a class. I’m collaborating with Rinehart, although I think he has the biggest role in this. I guess it is his creation...and I am just the facilitator here who is trying to... recreate it a little bit in my own way. But I want to honor his piece still by the methodology I use, so I start understanding it better or more in depth than just looking at it or photographing it...and I think, for me, always process is more important anyway. I think we have lived in a contemporary world where ego was on the forefront and not the work itself, or the process itself. Craft—because you need to be good in your craft to belong to that world—craft and craftsmanship can take out ego. That means that if you go through the process of understanding a piece and making, through the physicality of it, it takes my ego out of it, more or less. [EDS] came up with this idea. How does that inf luence me as I’m doing this? I go to the cemetery and it becomes a collaboration [with] the memory behind the piece itself. Then, it becomes a collaboration with Rinehart because he made it, he came up with this. It even becomes a collaboration with the people it was made for. I need to find a process in which I can insert myself in a certain way, but I’m only part of it.

What is your relationship with fabrication? Have you had work fabricated for you and have you fabricated pieces for others? AC: I learn a lot through the hands. I understand through the hand,

Could you describe your practice and process, and to what extent you are involved in the physical creation of your work?

ARTIST INTERVIEW

ANNET COUWENBERG

AC: I am a maker. I actually call myself not a sculptor but a fabri-

What or who inspires you? AC: I’m mostly inspired by more of a field than any specific artist. I’m extremely inspired by textiles. I feel that textiles give the human quality, but not only that, [they touch] on a lot of different things. [They touch] on sculpture...on clothing...on architecture, and anthropological readings. It’s a very human thing. I mean, everybody gets wrapped in cloth…[ you’re born and] the first thing you feel on your body is cloth, so it’s a very intimate medium that I feel connected with.

cator. So for me the process is from the ideation—the idea to the end—and I’m part of it all the way. Although I will extend my knowledge by incorporating new fields of fabrication, I go back to the basics of those things in the sense of building in a repetitive manner, building in a physical manner...I’m really intrigued right now with the idea of the digital craft and crafting, where they meet—how we can move from the physical to the virtual to the physical again. That’s what I’m researching right now by the way that I make: how [an object] changes when we put it in the virtual world…[and then] how do I take that back into the physical world by building it again by hand?

HAND / MADE 2015

and in making, I have a conversation with the material and the object. Through that I learn a lot about what needs to be...so I think that it’s really important to do it myself—although I do use assistants to help me, especially with new technolog y, so I can learn. I am, as I said, an educator, too, so I feel constantly inclined to learn other ways of making or fabricating.

I’M REALLY INTRIGUED RIGHT NOW WITH THE IDEA OF THE DIGITAL CRAFT AND CRAFTING, WHERE THEY MEET—HOW WE CAN MOVE FROM THE PHYSICAL TO THE VIRTUAL TO THE PHYSICAL AGAIN.

What is your relationship with your studio assistants or your fabricators? In what ways do you feel their roles differ from yours in the creation of the piece? AC: I am usually the one who makes the decisions in what direction we go, but I’m very much more side-by-side constantly. It’s not like they do one thing and I do another thing. We always work together or go back and forth. There’s no hierarchy. Sometimes they know more than I do; in some areas, I know more than they do. It goes back and forth, but it is always together. So, they do give suggestions, but I am the one, in the end, who starts from the ideation to the end of the piece.

HAND / MADE 2015

ARTIST INTERVIEWS

ARTIST INTERVIEW

it was the idea of sentimentality and using these images of children [ for] a gravesite, and coming to terms with death...I was interested in that and the manufacturing process. While Rinehart had the idea for the form, and created the model, I typically come at it the other way. If it’s unnecessary for me to design a little figure of a child...I have no problem finding a ready-made and then using that.

NANCY DALY What are some things that inspire you? ND: Primarily, my work is about social media and technology and how it affects the way we live...I’m also really interested in books about dystopian future: [Don DeLillo’s] White Noise, [Dave Eggers’s] The Circle, 1984, stuff like that.

I used a Hummel figurine. They’re very kitschy...mass produced, and I just found one online that struck me and based the piece off of that. So with this figurine in particular, it’s the Hummel Stargazer figurine, and it’s been around for awhile, but it was recontextualized to commemorate military action [in Bosnia]...that’s a typical thing of Hummel figurines: You collect them; they symbolize a part of your life; you think of the person that gave [them] to you.

Can you describe your practice or your process? ND: I examine things that I am using in real life and I think about what those things mean to me...I do a lot of reading and research...and then that leads me to brainstorming about different ways that I can make work about that, and that inevitably ends up being that I have to learn how to do a new thing. So my work isn’t all sculpture or all photography; with each piece I learn a new process. So there’s a lot of experimentation and messing up.

...SOMETIMES IT’S EASIER TO LOOK OUTSIDE OF US, TO THE FUTURE, RATHER THAN LOOK INWARD AND SEE WHAT’S WRONG AND WHAT’S GOING ON IN OUR WORLD RIGHT NOW. To what extent are you involved in the creation of your work?

I’m taking this thing and recontextualizing it in a different way. The figurines are affixed to the outside of this ball, so it’s all of these little boys looking out through these telescopes and outward...sometimes it’s easier to look outside of us, to the future, rather than look inward and see what’s wrong and what’s going on in our world now. It’s that same idea that I think Rinehart had, the symbolism of Sleeping Children and thinking of mortality, it’s easier than really examining what’s going on. ND: I’ve never made a piece that was entirely manufactured by somebody else. Sometimes I start with something that somebody else manufactured and I change it, and sometimes I have plans that I send out to somebody else, like a company, typically on the internet. But I don’t have studio assistants or anything like that.

What would you say your relationship is to fabrication? What’s your relationship with the fabrication companies you use? ND: [If ] it’s unimportant [to the piece] that I have done it myself, and I have the money to have it fabricated, I have no problem doing it. I set up plans through internet companies where...there’s this distance between me and the fabricator, and sometimes I don’t even know who i s doing it. I’m working with the communications person in the company and sending them the files, and they send me an email— it’s all through the computer.

How do you feel their role is different than yours when you’re creating the piece? ND: I guess in those cases, I’m the artist and I’m designing the thing, and then they’re just the craftsperson. A lot of the things that I’ve had manufactured, it’s also like the computer’s doing a lot of the work on their end. So they send it to the laser cutter and the laser cutter cuts it, and so the machine is doing a lot of that work, and then they’re the middle-man between me and that machine.

How did you approach the piece that we commissioned you to make? ND: I started by looking at the themes in Sleeping Children...for me

HAND / MADE 2015

Do you see nineteenth-century sculptural practices reflected in your own practice? How do you think your practice differs from Rinehart’s? ND: I think my practice differs from the traditional studio practices in that I find ready-mades and work from that, so somebody else has done that initial design. It’s like we’re coming at that from opposite directions.

What do you feel your role is in the authorship of this piece? Rinehart? The EDS class? ND: I think I’m taking on the role of the artist and also the craftsperson. Rinehart’s role is that he created the initial piece that I’m responding to and it’s the inspiration behind my line of thinking. The class has been really helpful in helping me understand what Rinehart’s process was and what the piece that he made was about, and the context of that.

I DO A LOT OF READING AND RESEARCH... AND THAT INEVITABLY ENDS UP BEING THAT I HAVE TO LEARN HOW TO DO A NEW THING. SO MY WORK ISN’T ALL SCULPTURE OR ALL PHOTOGRAPHY; WITH EACH PIECE I LEARN A NEW PROCESS. 32

ARTIST INTERVIEWS

ARTIST INTERVIEW

WE WILL BE TWISTING AND KNOTTING NEWSPAPERS TO CREATE A GIFT FOR THE AUDIENCE. WE MAY EVEN EXTEND OUR PROCESS WITH THE AUDIENCE ITSELF, SO THAT WE WHO ARE DOING THE WORK ARE TEACHING THE AUDIENCE TO DO THIS WORK, AND ARE PRESENTING THIS GIFT.

Do you have an y thoughts on artists who have studios like Jeff Koons? Having assistants who work on the artwork without having touched it themselves: Do you agree with it?

MAREN HASSINGER What or who inspires you? MH: Lately...what I’ve really been interested in [is] trying to express an equality between ourselves and other people. I’m really aware that the civil rights movement that I grew up with—in the ‘60s, when I was in high school and college—has gone by the wayside. I think it is my responsibility as a black woman artist to say something about that. The conversation I’ve heard of so much in the past few years hasn’t really addressed the idea of equality; it has addressed racism and the oppression that descendants of Africa have felt in this country. I’m not seeing myself as part of that conversation. I’m seeing myself in a different conversation.

Ca n you describe your processes a nd to w h at extent you’re involved in the physical creation of your work? MH: As far as the physical creation of my work goes, some projects I am doing all on my own, and some I do with some help, and some I do with a lot of help; sometimes I’ve given [a project] to others to do entirely, depending on what it is. For video pieces I need someone else to take the picture for me...I will be the performer and then sometimes the producer; it depends on the project. I feel like I want to get involved in all of the process, but it seems impractical. I used to have big tussles with wire rope and I would do it all by myself...sometimes it’s important to do all of the stuff yourself, especially when you’re first starting out...if your idea changes halfway through the project, you can change it.

MH: I think that the issue of Jeff Koons’ model of having a design area, and a fabricator, and having an artist have say on the idea but not the making...I think what happens is that [artists get] so many opportunities that they can’t fulfill them all, and would like to. And they have to diversify themselves. I prefer the Andy Warhol model: He had a studio manager, and according to the books that I’ve read, they would get together on Monday morning and have a conversation about what the work for the week would be; and they would discuss it and create ideas together. With Warhol, I always felt his hand on everything...I find his thought and touch in all of his work. Of course, it’s so hard to do these days when so much is digital, but I think it can still be done. For example, someone making a film has so many people in front of the camera, and all the people behind the camera...but somehow the film will be finished, and it will look like another film by the same director. Somehow, they managed to have a vision, a touch, an intellect, that f lows through the whole thing, and connects all of the people that have worked on the project.

How did you approach the piece that we commissioned you to make? What elements of the Rinehart sculpture sleeping children did you gravitate to? MH: Even though the piece you commissioned me to make was a sculpture, since my program was named the Rinehart School of Sculpture, I’m going to do a performance. My students have agreed to join me in this performance so that all of us are working together in Rinehart’s legacy...the piece is called Women’s Work. In it, I do what is typically women’s work, but now with my new ideas about equality, men can do women’s work and women can do men’s work, and there is no bias in work; it’s just work.

SOME PROJECTS I AM DOING ALL ON MY OWN, AND SOME I DO WITH SOME HELP, AND SOME I DO WITH A LOT OF HELP; SOMETIMES I’VE GIVEN [A PROJECT] TO OTHERS TO DO ENTIRELY, DEPENDING ON WHAT IT IS. 33

HAND / MADE 2015

We will be twisting and knotting newspapers to create a gift for the audience. The more people that we have working, the bigger the gift, and we may even extend our process with the audience itself, so that we who are doing the work are teaching the audience to do this work, and are presenting this gift...there is no line with the performance and audie nce...by including the audie nce in the pe r for mance I am breaking that line.

What role do you feel you have in the authorship of the piece that you’re making? What role does Rinehart have? What role does the Exhibition Development Seminar class have? If you had to assign each individual a role, who would be the artist, who would be the patron, and who would be the fabricator? MH: I was the one who was making the newspaper strips when I had the opportunity to create [Women’s Work] in Paris. It was a collaboration with a friend of mine...I was using people that had been around me for a long time. It was a very logical extension of my studio practice. You could say that I authored it, because I did, but it didn’t come out of nowhere, and I never thought I could do it by myself. It needed other people. The role of the EDS class was to create an exhibition...organize it, find the location, find the artists, hang the show, do the labels, get people in to see it, do whatever had to be done. We are all fabricators in this. EDS is putting on the show, fabricating something, not an object, but an event…[the Rinehart students and I] are fabricating a gift for the audience.

ARTIST INTERVIEWS

ARTIST INTERVIEW

What are some things that inspire you?

MEGAN VAN WAGONER

MVW: I think one of the real big inspirations in what I do is narrative, and so I think a lot about stories and writing and language. From a visual perspective, I think a lot of my work is sort of graphic even though it’s sculptural.

Can you describe your practice or your process? M V W: I think almos t all of my wo rk fo r the l a s t f ive o r s i x years has been based on taking multiple parts and putting them together. I work in a lot of materials; clay is my background, and clay is a go-to if I need a material because it can do so much, b u t I a l s o u s e a l ot o f s te e l . I ’ l l we l d b ra c k e t s a n d m a k e f o r m s to hol d othe r shape s , or me tal ca s t ing. I’m work ing in gl a ss now...I like to work in multiples because I think by the time you get to the third or fourth or eighth or tenth one, you actually feel really comfortable with the form, so some of that works itself out as a series of finished pieces, and other times it’s like I’m making multiples to the point where all those pieces are going to go together, like with the potatoes.

To what extent are you involved in the physical creation of the work?

I DON’T THINK I WOULD HAVE EVER LOOKED AT RINEHART AND THOUGHT I SHOULD DO SOMETHING BASED ON THIS.

MV W: Almost everything I make myself. I have a studio assistant right now who comes in once a week...I hate to say she ends up doing the grunt work, and I do most of the object making. I like the idea that the things that I’m making, I could generate ideas and schematics and somebody else could make them; I don’t think my hand is particularly important in a lot of it...but I like the process. I’m not ready to give that up yet.

What is your relationship with your studio assistant? MV W: Since I teach, I have access to a lot of people who are in the process of learning art and looking for experience of what it’s like in the studio. I see part of my job having a studio assistant as teaching stuff. Sometimes it’s technical; sometimes it’s about the practice of being an artist. When I’m working in glass, though, I’m definitely working with somebody who brings to it their own ideas on how to get the glass to the end result that I’m looking for. Part of that is I have a little less experience; I’ve done a lot more clay and metal work than I have done glass work... but I think it’s also part of the nature...blowing glass is definitely not a one-person job. There’s a back and forth; you’re sort of two equals working side by side doing different parts of a process.

How did you approach the piece we’re commissioning you to make? M V W: W he n I looked at Slee p ing Chil dre n , I wa s sor t of st r uck b y t h e s i m i l a r i t y o f w h a t h e d i d i n t h a t p i e c e t o

HAND / MADE 2015

what I’m doing in some of my work...he’s using these really voluptuous pillow forms...and I’ve been working with pillows and clay for, I don’t know, four or five years in one form or another. And the other piece about that is as a grave marker, that particu l a r piece is about captur ing something at its pr ime, most innocent moment...everything is perfect, not necessarily the way things are in real life, but the way you’d want to remember them. This whole series of work that I’ve been doing lately takes potatoes and cabbage and other produce and reproduces it in this jewel-like glass form, and then places it on the pillow as though it’s something really special...I knew immediately that it was going to be something along those lines.

What role do you feel you have in the authorship of this piece? The class? Rinehart? MVW: I feel like I have complete authorship. Having that particular sculpture as an inspiration or a starting point, I don’t feel like that’s really any different than being approached and asked ‘can you make a work about whatever current event or some other topic?’ It’s a theme, and something to look at for inspiration, but I didn’t feel like what I was making was so closely tied to his work...on the other hand, I would probably not be making this specific work or thinking about it in this specific way without the prompting of the class. I don’t think I would have ever looked at Rinehart and thought I should do something based on this.

I’VE DONE A LOT MORE CLAY AND METAL WORK THAN I HAVE DONE GLASS WORK...BUT I THINK IT’S ALSO PART OF THE NATURE...BLOWING GLASS IS DEFINITELY NOT A ONE PERSON JOB. THERE’S A BACK AND FORTH, YOU’RE SORT OF TWO EQUALS WORKING SIDE BY SIDE DOING DIFFERENT PARTS OF A PROCESS. 36

ARTIST INTERVIEWS

ARTIST INTERVIEW

RICHARD VOSSELLER

Who or what inspires you? RV: Knocked down buildings, built buildings, architecture, I’m a fan of boxing and ballet—those things inspire me. Technology allows me to grab the intangible, play when it’s in a casual state, and make the intangible real. So 3D scanning, 3D printing, when you combine those two things together you can grab things that aren’t really there.

To what extent are you involved in the physical creation of the work? RV: I’m always involved. I wouldn’t have it any other way...but when you make things of a certain size, it necessitates having other people help out. Having other people be a part of it, you have to allow other brains in. You’re allowing other people to be a part of the work. I’ve gotten better at it over the years. Sometimes it doesn’t work out, but when you’re having people help you out, that’s what you get.

Do you always supervise the construction of your pieces?

Before we approached you about the commissioned piece, were you aware of William Henry Rinehart’s studio practices and his use of skilled craftsman?

What in particular do you think is different in your studio practice than nineteenth-century studio practices?

RV: As far as Rinehart’s studio practices, I think it’s very typical for the nineteenth century. It’s the guild system. Again, when you get so big and you’re doing these giant projects and you have five of them running at one time, you have to have other people putting their hands in on things. The underlings would do the grunt work, then the master shows up and does the final touches, and there it is. That’s been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. If you look at [contemporary art], that system is coming back again. Nobody wants to touch his work...there are the studio workers who take care of that, then the master comes in and does the finishing touches. We don’t want to acknowledge the guild system, or the way that it was. Oh, things are different now! But no, it’s all coming back again.

RV: I always joke that if Michelangelo were around today...I don’t think he would be pounding stone. I think he would be 3D printing it out and using CNC routers. So how is [my work] different? I use projections. I use scans, CAD, and all of those things that are little facets of the process. I don’t know if you’ve ever hand-carved stone, but that’s a tough business right there. There’s no need for it anymore. There are machines that you can push a button on that can cut out stone in any basic shape that you need, so why would you do it any other way?

I ALWAYS JOKE THAT IF MICHELANGELO WERE AROUND TODAY...I DON’T THINK HE WOULD BE POUNDING STONE. I THINK HE WOULD BE 3D PRINTING IT OUT AND USING CNC ROUTERS.

I UNDERSTAND THE GENERAL IDEA OF WHY WE RELINQUISH AUTHORSHIP. MY PROBLEM IS MY HANDS. I LIKE MY HANDS. I LIKE MY HANDS TO BE A PART OF THINGS.

RV: I don’t think “supervise” is the word. It’s a lot more fun; “supervising” makes it sound like work. But at the end of the day everyone else can leave. If something is wrong at the end of the workday, they don’t care. You do have to be on top of it. As far as other people fabricating work, I don’t want to, and I don’t typically, but the more you do and the more your own life gets in the way, and the bigger the project is, fabrication is the natural progression of things.

Do you feel that the roles of the people helping you differ from yours when you’re creating a piece? RV: Absolutely. For one thing, your name is not on the line...I’ve helped other people out too, and it’s actually really good.However, when your name is on this thing, you want it to be just right.

Do you think they have any claim of authorship in your work? Or that you have any claim to authorship of works that you’ve helped with? RV: No. You relinquish your claim to authorship in some sense, if you’re just helping out. In my practice people are just helping out... if you go up to New York, there are those who don’t touch their work at all. In fact, it’s frowned upon to actually fabricate any of your work, and I understand that. I understand the general idea of why we relinquish authorship. My problem is my hands. I like my hands. I like my hands to be a part of things.

HAND / MADE 2015

EVENTS

WA L L QUE S T ION S / RE S ULT S

Artwork is rarely made by one lone artist. Who is the Author? Who should sign the artwork?

DAT E

02/19/15

218

10 0

02/25/15

03/04/15

03/11/15

TO TA L

3 10

107

252

*Marbles were used to generate results.

E V EN T S PHO T O S B Y X I AO T I A N YA NG & JACK S OROK I N

H A ND / M A DE OPENING PHO T O B Y JACK S OROK I N

The opening reception of HAND / MADE was held in Decker Gallery at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). It was attended by over 250 people of all ages. We received generous feedback through conversation and engagement with the response wall. Visitors received educational pamphlets, watched recorded artist interviews, and viewed the art on display in the gallery. MICA, 1300 W. Mount Royal Avenue / Fri, Feb. 6 / 6-8:30 p.m.

HAND / MADE 2015

EVENTS

PA NEL DIS CUS SION

M A K E NIGH T & GA L L ERY TA L K

PHO T O B Y JACK S OROK I N

This panel discussion featured four of the commissioned artists: Annet Couwenberg, Nancy Daly, Richard Vosseller, and Megan Van Wagoner. The panel was moderated by Marian Glebes, artist and co-curator of Design Conversations at D Center Baltimore. Questions asked during the panel focused on authorship and its effects on the artists’ studio practices. The artists discussed their commissioned pieces for HAND / MADE and related them to ideas of collaboration, influence, and the art community in Baltimore.

In conjunction with the Walters Art Museum’s series of Thursday night Make Nights, EDS organized a Make Night and Gallery Talk with HAND / MADE artist Annet Couwenberg. The gallery talk portion of the evening focused on Golden Age Dutch paintings, and on what Couwenberg refers to as “the humanity of fabric.” Following the gallery talk, participants draped small objects in plaster in order to illustrate decorative effects in cloth and reflect on the earlier discussion. T he Walte r s Ar t Mu se um , 6 0 0 N. Cha rles St. / T hu rs, Feb. 2 6 / 6 - 8: 3 0 p.m.

Fred Lazarus IV Center (Auditorium) / 131 W. North Avenue / Fri, Feb. 13 / 5-6 p.m.

HAND / MADE 2015

EVENTS

WOMEN’S WORK

GREEN MOUN T E X PEDITION

PHO T O B Y JACK S OROK I N

PHO T O B Y T H E WA LT E R S A R T M USEU M

The commissioned performance, Women’s Work, was led by Hassinger and included a collaboration with her students from the Rinehart School of Sculpture. The performance references the perception of weaving and other textile work as inherently domestic, as well as the uncredited hands involved in the creation of a piece of art. Hassinger addresses contemporary issues of gender and race using media that has only recently become recognized as part of the inclusive field of sculpture.

The trip to Green Mount Cemetery focused on the various Rinehart sculptures and markers installed on the grounds. Participants located and explored the sculptures independently through the guided activity of a scavenger hunt. Visitors learned about the cemetery and the legacy of Rinehart’s work in Baltimore. Green Mount Cemetery / Thurs, Apr. 16 / 11-1:30 p.m.

The Walters Art Museum, 600 N. Charles St. / Thurs, Mar. 26 / 6-7:30 p.m.

HAND / MADE 2015

PROCESS

THE SLEEPING CHILDREN, CLEANED BY MICA CONSERVATORS FOR HAND/MADE

THE PROGRAM IS STUDENT-RUN AND DRIVEN BY CONSENSUS-BASED DECISION MAKING.

THE FLOOR PL AN WAS INTENDED TO DRAW VISITORS’ ATTENTION TO HENRY RINEHART’S SLEEPING CHILDREN AS THEY ENTER THE GALLERY, AND TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO MOVE IN A CIRCLE THROUGH THE SPACE TO FIND RELATED ARTWORKS BY THREE CORRESPONDING ARTISTS.

EACH STUDENT HAS EQUAL INPUT AND INVOLVEMENT IN HOW THE EXHIBITION IS FORMED.

INTERVIEWS WITH THE ARTISTS E XPANDED THE C O N V E R S AT I O N; T H E S E S H O R T V ID E O S W E R E DISPLAYED ON MONITORS IN THE DRAMATICALLY LIT, ROYAL BLUE-HUED SPACE.

EVERY STEP OF THE PROCESS IS HANDLED BY THE STUDENTS.

EDS CLASS OF 2015 (LEFT TO RIGHT): (Back Row) Kara Mask / Aubrey Vinson / Ricki Rothchild / Leslie Chung / Qin Tan / Janet Ma / Jeffry Cudlin / Ece Gürleyik / Lizzi Skalka / Emilyann Craighead (Front Row) Tatiana Ordonez / Kirsten Walsh / Zoe Monnier / Annie Wilsey

CREDIT S & ACK NOW L EDGMEN T S

NOT PICTURED: Adenike Adelekan / Brittany Jasin / Daphne Taranto / Celeste Taylor / Gloria You

E X H I BI T ION DE V E L OPM E N T SE M I N A R ( E DS) / CL A S S OF 2 015

EDS TEAMS

COLLABORATORS

ARTISTS

Communications Emilyann Craighead Qin Tan

The Walters Art Museum Jo Briggs / Assistant Curator of 18th & 19th Century Art Charles Dibble / Manager of Curatorial Publications Jennifer Corr Paulson / Publications Coordinator Mona Rock / Public Relations Manager Becca Seitz / Director of Marketing and Communications Alexander Jarmen / Manager of Adult and Community Programs Hannah Burstein / Coordinator of Adult Programs

Annet Couwenberg Nancy Daly Maren Hassinger Sebastian Martorana Megan Van Wagoner Richard Vosseller

Curatorial Adenike Adelekan Lizzi Skalka Annie Wilsey Education Zoe Monnier Tatiana Ordonez Celeste Taylor Exhibition Design Ece Gürleyik Brittany Jasin Janet Ma Daphne Taranto

EDS / CL A S S S TATEMEN T B Y R IC K I R O T H C H I L D & AU B R E Y V I N S O N / PH O T O B Y JAC K S O R O K I N

xhibition Development Seminar (EDS) spans two consecutive semesters and is an integ ral par t of the Curatorial Studies Concentration at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Required for the concentration, this class attracts students who have an interest in creating exhibitions from a wide variety of majors. This year’s class includes students from Painting, General Fine A rts, Fibers, Drawing, Art History, Illustration, Interdisciplinary Sculpture, Graphic Design, and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program. EDS was founded in 1997 by MICA’s Curator-in-Residence, George Ciscle, now the director of the MFA in Curatorial Practice program. To simulate the structure of fine arts institutions, the EDS students are broken into smaller teams that handle different aspects of the exhibition’s production. These teams are: Curatorial, Communications, Graphic Design, Exhibition Design, Education, and Project Coordination. While the class is taught by Curatorial Studies coordinator Jeffry Cudlin, the program is student-run and driven by consensus-based decision making. Each student has equal input and involvement in how the exhibition is formed, and every step of the process is handled by the students. Collaboration and communication between the teams is vital to the success of the project. Independent work is first developed by each group, then is presented and discussed with the rest of the class during weekly meetings. Each group may have different responsibilities for the exhibition’s planning and development, but all work together to create a cohesive show.

This year’s exhibition—HAND / MADE, on view at MICA’s Decker Gallery from January 30 to March 15—specifically addresses issues of fabrication and authorship in the fine arts, and invites contemporary artists to examine the legacy of William Henry Rinehart. The show acts as a contemporary response to curator Jenny Carson’s historical exhibition, Rinehart’s Studio: Rough Stone to Living Marble, featured at the Walters Art Museum from March 29 to August 30. Rinehart was a graduate of MICA and a favored artist of the Walters family. His estate founded the Rinehart School of Sculpture at MICA, and many of his works are featured in the Walters’ collection. The conversation between these two exhibitions honors Rinehart’s lasting impact on the arts in Baltimore. EDS is proud to have initiated this conversation, and to have affirmed the shared history of MICA and the Walters. Our roles as the Project Coordinators have given us a unique overview of the class’s process and experiences. Our classmates have seen each other through tight deadlines, differing opinions, and the follies of inexperience. We are proud of the success of HAND / MADE and want to thank our teachers, mentors, and classmates.

MICA / Department Of Exhibitions Carla Brown / Office Manager Andrea Dixon / Assistant Director Gerald Ross / Director of Exhibitions James Williams / Gallery Installation Manager MICA / MFA in Curatorial Practice (CP) Marcus Civin / Interim Director George Ciscle / Director and Curator in Residence CP ‘15 and ‘16 Students

Graphic Design Leslie Chung Kara Mask Gloria You

MICA / Communications Jessica Weglein Goldstein / Director of Public Relations Dionne McConkey / Assistant Director of Public Relations

Project Coordinators Ricki Rothchild Aubrey Vinson

MICA / Office of Advancement Sara Benninghoff Warren / Director of Corporate, Foundation, and Government Relations

EDS MENTORS MICA Jeffry Cudlin / EDS Instructor Kirsten Walsh / EDS Graduate Teaching Intern Jenny Carson / Chair of Art History and Criticism The Walters Art Museum Johanna Biehler / Head of Graphic Design Rebecca Sinel / Manager of Family Programs Tony Venne / Graphic Designer

Julia Marciari-Alexander / Andrea B. and John H. Laporte Director of the Walters Art Museum & Samuel Hoi / President of MICA Catherine Akins / AllOverStreet / Francis Bitonti / Gabrielle Buzgo / Marian Glebes / Paige Glotzer / Green Mount Cemetery / Hilgartner Natural Stone Company, Inc. / Maryland Historical Society / New Green Mount West Community Association / Sandy Triolo / Lu Zhang SUPPORT PROVIDED BY Friends of EDS Parkhurst Dining Schmitz Press

Ricki Rothchild

& Aubrey Vinson

Jack Sorokin / jacksorokin.com Xiaotian Yang Qin Tan

SPECIAL THANKS

Project Coordinator / MICA ‘17

Project Coordinator / MICA ‘16

PHOTOGRAPHY

1300 West Mount Royal Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21217