Mid-century modern American brass sculpture of a rearing unicorn. Attached to brass base.

Size: 16 x 6 1/2 x 18 1/2 in. 

#2269 #97 . 

In the 1830s, the first generation of notable American sculptors studied and lived in Italy, particularly in Florence and Rome, leading to the development of the Neoclassic style. Surrounded by great monuments of antiquity and museum collections full of pieces sometimes ten times older than the fledgling country, they also gained access to the carvers of Italy who translated their clay works into marble. Importantly, American women like Edmonia Lewis became celebrated sculptors during the Italian Period despite the sexism of the age, paving the way for female artists in other genres. In the decades following the Civil War American sculptors began to go more often to Paris to study, incorporating the more naturalistic style exemplified by the works of contemporary French sculptors and resulting in an abundance of national monuments. A homegrown American sculpture aesthetic developed in the late 19th Century that held classical and romantic tenets, but showed a special bent for a dramatic, narrative, almost journalistic realism that dealt with nationalistic themes, coinciding with the appearance of the concept of Manifest Destiny. Modern and Postmodern works were heavily influenced by a flood of European sculptors fleeing the turmoil of Europe in the early 20th Century, with whimsical, Brutalist, and surreal elements integrating into classical and naturalist ideals. While the tradition of figurative sculpting continues into the 21st Century, after the middle of the 20th Century sculpture as a whole began to noticeably shift towards the abstract.

Good.