May 1993: An exhibition drawn from the permanent collection of The Brooklyn Museum of more than 75 sculptors’ drawings, many of them never before on public view, as well as 13 related sculptures will be presented at the Museum June 25 through September 19 in the Robert E. Blum Gallery, located on the first floor.
Entitled The Second Dimension: Twentieth-Century Sculptors’ Drawings, the exhibition includes drawings, mostly in black and white, that were created between 1903 and the present by American and European artists. The works on paper range in scale from 4 x 6 inches to 60 x 144 inches and in media from pencil sketches to finished watercolors. Some are studies for or after specific sculptures that will be installed with the drawings, such as Judith Shea’s The Balance (1986) and Frank Gerritz’s Block Formation (1991). Others, by artists such as Lee Bontecou, Dennis Oppenheim, and Mary Frank, are ideas for sculptures, some of which were executed and can now be found at other locations.
Works like Alice Aycock’s Representation of the Second World, Chris Macdonald’s Star Drawing, and Robert Stackhouse’s Drawing for the Brooklyn Bridge, all from the 1980s, represent ideas too grand to construct three-dimensionally. Many of these drawings are studies from the model by artists such as Auguste Rodin, Gaston Lachaise, Isamu Noguchi, and Louise Nevelson.
Additional sculptures include works by Reg Butler, Chris Macdonald, and Andrew Topolski, among others.
The Second Dimension: Twentieth-Century Sculptors’ Drawings was organized by Linda Konheim Kramer, Curator, Prints and Drawings, The Brooklyn Museum. It was made possible by funds from a presentation at the Susan Sheehan Gallery to benefit The Brooklyn Museum and from an anonymous donor.
Brooklyn Museum Archives. Records of the Department of Public Information. Press releases, 1989 - 1994. 01-06/1993, 052-53.
