1. European influences

2. a revival of carving and great respect for an artist's materials
Constantin Brâncuşi
a revival of carving and great respect for an artist's materials
“The people who call my work ‘abstract’ are imbeciles; what they call ‘abstract’ is in fact the purest realism, the reality of which is not represented by external form but by the idea behind it, the essence of the work.” (Brancusi)
“What is real is not the external form, but the essence of things,” he says. “It is impossible for anyone to express anything essentially real by imitating its exterior surface.” (Brancusi)

3. Constantin Brâncuşi
The Prayer 1907 Bronze 111,5 x 35 x 112 cm

4. Constantin Brâncuşi The Kiss (4th version) 1916
Limestone 23 x 13 1/4 x 10 inches (58.4 x 33.7 x 25.4 cm)

5. Constantin Brâncuşi Princess X 1915-16
Polished bronze; limestone block 24 5/16 x 15 15/16 x 8 3/4 inches (61.7 x 40.5 x 22.2 cm)
Base (three elements): 44 5/16 inches (112.5 cm)
Base (Cube): 7 1/4 x 7 1/4 inches (18.4 x 18.4 cm)

6. Constantin Brancusi Golden Bird 1919/20 (base c. 1922) Bird in Space
1920s to the 1940s
birds in flight
Maiastra, 1912 (?) Polished brass 73.1 cm high, including base
Golden Bird
1919/20 (base c. 1922)
Bird in Space
Marble; (with base) H. 56-3/4, Diam. 6-1/2 in. (144.1 x 16.5 cm)

7. Sculptural Ensemble in Târgu Jiu
The Gate of the Kiss
travertine (marble)
concrete foundation of 5 square meters
5,13 m high, 5,45 m long
the pillars have 1,69 m width
The Table of Silence
The Endless Column (or the Column of Gratitude)
17 rhomboidal cast iron modules in a 29.3 meter high column
The modules are fixed on a steel axis
The Table of Silence, The Gate of the Kiss and The Endless Column lie on an axis 1,275 meters long, oriented west to east

8. Alberto Giacometti
Existentialism

9. the void
Walking man II
1960
bronze
Standing Woman
bronze,
c. 1955
Standing Woman
bronze, c

10. Henry Moore England organic forms in abstract works
hollowed biomorphic shapes
Reclining Figure
Roman travertine, 16’ long
Reclining Figure
plaster, 1951
UNESCO
(United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization),Paris

11. Isamu Noguchi Kouros, 1944–45 Marble; H. 117”, base: D. 34”, W. 42”
"the encroaching void"
This Tortured Earth, 1942 Bronze, 4 x 28 x 28 inches
The sculptures were assembled from individual pieces of carved stone, without benefit of adhesives or pinions, by notching and slotting the pieces together
Kouros, 1944–45 Marble; H. 117”, base: D. 34”, W. 42”
Biomorphic imagery

12. Isamu Noguchi Early Abstraction Positional Shape, c.1928, brass
Globular, 1928, polished brass

13. Table for A. Conger Goodyear, 1939, rosewood
Remembrance, 1944, mahogany

14. Coffee Table, 1944, glass top and wood base
Wood and metal "rudder" dining table and stools, 1944

15. Area 12 of The Noguchi Museum, Long Island City, New York
Sculptures seen from left to right: Figure, Strange Bird (Aluminum), The Kiss, Strange Bird (Slate) and Gregory (Effigy)

16. "Garden of the Past" at the IBM Headquarters, 1964, Armonk, New York
Model of Garden for Lever Brothers Building,
New York City, Unrealized.
Memorial garden for Yone Noguchi designed by Isamu Noguchi, , Keio University, Tokyo. 
"Garden of the Past" at the IBM Headquarters, 1964, Armonk, New York

17. Delegates Patio, Gardens for UNESCO, 1956-58, UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France
Overview of Gardens for UNESCO, , UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France

18. Sunken Garden for Chase Manhattan Bank Plaza, 1961-64, New York City

19. Maquette of stage set for the Royal Shakespeare Company production of King Lear, London,1955.
Martha Graham in Medea's dress from Cave of the Heart, stage set designed by Isamu Noguchi in 1946

20. Model for Jefferson Memorial Park, 1945
Model for Jefferson Memorial Park, Collaboration with Edward Durell Stone. Unrealized
Bayfront Park, Miami, Florida. Project began in 1979 and is still in progress

21. Louise Nevelson Homage to 6,000,000 I, 1964 Sky Cathedral. 1958.
painted wood (found objects, including moldings, dowels,
spindles, chair parts, architectural ornaments,
and scroll-sawed fragments)
A Surrealist artist might have shared Nevelson's relish for curious bric-à-brac, but might also have arranged such a collection in jarring and disorienting juxtapositions. Nevelson, by contrast, paints every object and box the same dully glowing black, unifying them visually while also obscuring their original identities. The social archaeology suggested by the objects' individual histories and functions, then, is muted but not erased; it is as if we were looking at the wall of a library, in which all of the books had been translated into another language.
Sky Cathedral
11' 3 1/2" x 10' 1/4" x 18"
blending the boundaries between sculpture and assemblage, collage and woodwork

22. Painted woods – ROYAL TIDE I, 1960 & WHITE VERTICAL WATER, 1972
Painted woods – ROYAL TIDE I, 1960 & WHITE VERTICAL WATER, Louise Nevelson

23. David Smith The Banquet 1951 installation at Kykuit
industrial materials, especially welded iron and steel
exploration of an open, linear structure
“Personnages”
The Banquet
1951
installation at Kykuit

24. David Smith Picasso Julio Gonzales
Project for a Monument to Guillaume Apollinaire
1962
enlarged version after 1928 original maquette.
Painted steel, 6' 6" x 29 7/8" x 62 7/8"
Julio Gonzales
Woman with a Mirror (Femme au miroir),
ca (cast ca. 1980)
Bronze, 80 15/16 x 26 3/8 x 14 3/16 in

25. David Smith
Fish
Ancient Household
1945, bronze

26. David Smith
Hudson River Landscape, 1951 Welded steel

27. David Smith David Smith with Australia, 1951 Sentinel III 1957
Painted steel
83 3/4 x 27 x 16 1/4 in
David Smith with Australia, 1951

28. David Smith
Cubi XXVII 1965
Cubi I 1963
Cubi XIX 1964

29. Alexander Calder Horse 1928 Walnut 15 1/2" x 34 3/4" x 8 1/8"
Totem Pole
1929
Wood
65 1/4" x 8 1/4" x 4 3/4"

30. Cirque Calder
Mixed media
54" x 94 1/4" x 94 1/4"

31. Vertical Foliage 1941 Sheet metal, wire, and paint 53 1/2" x 66"
Untitled
1938
Wood, wire, sheet metal, string, and paint
81" x 96"

32. Myxomatose Big Bird 1953 Sheet metal and paint
101" x 161"; base: 52 1/2" x 41"
Big Bird
1937
Sheet metal, bolts, and paint
88" x 50" x 59"

33. Louise Bourgeois Quarantania The Blind Leading the Blind 1947–1949
Wood, painted pink
70 3/8 x 96 7/8 x 17 3/8 in.
Quarantania
Bronze, painted white and blue 80 1/2 x 27 x 27 in

34. Maman

35. Away from Abstract Expressionism new emphasis on the concrete
influence of Duchamp - found objects, ‘ready-mades’
POP ART
mass media and popular culture

36. Robert Rauschenberg Painting, Collage and Assemblage 2-D/3-D COMBINES
“I try to act in the gap between art and life”
To see the strange in the familiar
The chaos and unpredictability
of modern urban experience
is embraced with irony and joy
Canyon
combine on canvas, 1959,
6’ x 5’ x 2’ (fabric, cardboard, paper,
photographs, metal, paint, etc,
collage and 3-D)

37. Canyon, combine on canvas, 1959, 6 x 5 x 2’ (fabric, cardboard, paper, photographs, metal, paint, etc, collage and 3-D)

38. “A pair of socks is no less suitable to make a painting with
“I don’t want a picture to look like something it isn’t. I want it to look like something it is.
And I think a picture is more like the real world when it’s made out of the real world.”
“A pair of socks is no less suitable to make a painting with
than wood, nails, turpentine, oil, and fabric.”
--Robert Rauschenberg in Susan Hapgood’s Neo-Dada, Redefining Art , p.18

39. Robert Rauschenberg Monogram, 1955-59 Combine
(stuffed angora goat, a tire, a police barrier,
the heel of a shoe, a tennis ball, newspaper clippings
and paint)
42 x 64 x 64”
"I had to make a surface which invited a constant change
of focus and examination of detail. Listening happens
in time. Looking also happens in time."