A Book in Celebration of Women in the Arts: "Great (Women) Sculptors"

The book looks at all types of sculpture and does not discriminate nor define what sculpture is based on medium or scale. There are human figures, flora and fauna, conglomerates of smaller shapes to form a larger shape, and artists from Yayoi Kusama—the highest paid living artist— to the conceptual mastermind that is Alicja Kwade, who makes sculptures that play with scale, weight, stone, and reflective surfaces. 

While women still make up roughly 3-5% of major permanent collections in the U.S. and Europe, this book not only shines a light, but drastically illuminates 300 female sculptors spanning 500 years. Why this is so exciting is because it is 2024 and not many names of these artists fall on the tongues of the public, nor even art world luminaries. Lest we forget that 500 years ago is 1524! 

An artist whose name is perhaps the most well-known globally is Artemisa Gentileschi who lived from 1593-1653 and was not a sculptor but a painter during the Baroque period. 

Here, we will have the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with Properzia de’ Rossi who, in early 16th century Italy, was making sculpture and illustrated by what is described as an "elegantly carved cherry pit."

That’s right… a cherry pit, a small object only revealed once the ruby red fruit is removed. A cherry pit symbolizes new life or rebirth, which seems all too perfect in this context, as women are bearers of life and channels for birth. 

In my opinion, one of today's most important young sculptors included in Great (Women) Sculptors is Delcy Morelos. Coming off a 10 month survey at the Dia in Chelsea, New York, Morelos makes work that is weighted physically by materiality, while also carrying an emotional weight. 

In the exhibition “El abrazo,” she uses materials such as soil, cinnamon, clove, felt, wood, fired ceramics, and fragrance, amongst others, to create immersive installations that fill the space structurally, as well as invisibly, only experienced through the olfactory sense. 

The artist was born in Colombia in 1967 and makes work that is as global as it is specific to her experience and relationship to the interpretation of Amazon Indigenous origin stories. 

In her introductory essay, writer and editor Lisa Le Feuvre states, “Sculpture is both a material object and an invitation to perceive. [...] Sculpture is wonderfully in and of the world. [It] demands an encounter, insisting that it takes place in time and space.” 

Another artist whose work fills a void in the canon of sculpture is Jessica Stockholder. Stockholder makes work using readymade objects and creates assemblages with a focus on texture, color, and form. In her work, a sea foam green rubber glove might sit next to a yellow bucket attached to a red cork board, and it all makes perfect sense. 

Her practice is one where the objects themselves are stripped or void of their original intention in favor of a new compositional purpose. 

However, while Stockholder shies away from figurative or narrative references, Sarah Lucas, a YBA, does not. Lucas also tends to utilize readymade materials, but in a completely different way, communicating with the personal narrative and conceptual storytelling in her installations.

Such is the case with Suffolk Bunny (1997-2004), consisting of: tan tights, blue stockings, chair, clamp, kapok, and wire. The work is a seated figure of sorts, only identifiable through gangly legs, a partial torso, and elongated arms, or bunny ears. 

Lucas uses this form throughout her career and it is the perfect way for the editors to find a resting place between highly-conceptual sculptures and formal figuration, such as in the works of Sarah Bernhardt, Nina Beier, and Dora Gordine, whose figures elegantly engage with their surroundings.

Great (Women) Sculptors fills a void that many, prior to reading, may not have even known needed to be resolved. It aggregates a large selection of sculptors who have left their marks on art history and continue to challenge and push against societal perceptions of what sculpture is. It will be published in October 2024.