Volume 49, Number 4 · March 14, 2002
Sketches in Clay
By James Fenton
Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta Sculpture from Donatello to Canova
Catalog of the exhibition edited by Bruce Boucher
an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 18, 2001–February 3, 2002; and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, March 14–July 7, 2002
Yale University Press, 311 pp., $75.00
Juan Muñoz
Catalog of the exhibition edited by Neal Benezra, Olga M. Viso, Michael Brenson, and Paul Schimmel
an exhibition at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., October 18, 2001–January 13, 2002; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, April 21–July 28, 2002; the Art Institute of Chicago,September 14–December 8, 2002; and the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, January 24–March 30, 2003.
University of Chicago Press, 228 pp., $50.00
Impressionist Still Life
Catalog of the exhibitionby Eliza E. Rathbone and George T.M. Shackelford
an exhibition at the Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., September 22, 2001–January 13, 2002; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, February 17–June 9, 2002.
Phillips Collection/Abrams, 240 pp., $45.00; $25.00 (paper)
It is surprising that there should exist no general history of Italian terracottas, those clay models of figures or groups that are to sculpture in marble and bronze what drawing is to painting. And then again, perhaps it is not so surprising, for there exists no general history of Italian drawings either. Many things that you would expect to find done (even if badly done) in the world of art history have not even been attempted. If you wish to find out about Italian terracotta, you must turn to the catalogs of various exhibitions that have been devoted to individual collections (the Arthur M. Sackler Collection, the Farsetti collection in St. Petersburg, the Palazzo di Venezia collection in Rome) and piece the story together for yourself.[*]
Review, 3306 words
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