Sculpture of the United States
The history of sculpture in the United States begins in the 1600s "with the modest efforts of craftsmen who adorned gravestones, Bible boxes, and various utilitarian objects with simple low-relief decorations.
"[1] American sculpture in its many forms, genres and guises has continuously contributed to the cultural landscape of world art into the 21st century.
There is frequently art in well-made tombstones, iron products, furniture, toys, and tools—perhaps better reflecting the character of a people than sculptures made in classical styles for social elites.
One of these specific applications, the carving of wooden figureheads for ships, started in the Americas as early as 1750[2] and a century later helped launch the careers of Samuel McIntyre and the country's first famous sculptor, William Rush (1756–1833) of Philadelphia.
Among the women who acquired both commissions and fame were Edmonia Lewis, Harriet Hosmer, Anne Whitney, Vinnie Ream and Emma Stebbins).
American sculpture of the mid- to late 19th century was often classical and often romantic, but it showed a special bent for a dramatic, narrative, almost journalistic realism (especially appropriate for nationalistic themes) as witnessed by the frontier life depicted by Frederic Remington.
The first generation of American animaliers included, Edward Kemeys, Edward Potter (who occasionally worked with Daniel Chester French, producing horses for his equestrian statues), Alexander Phimister Proctor (who executed mounts for Augustus Saint-Gaudens' riders), Charles Russell, Herbert Haseltine, Frederick Roth, Albert Laessle and Anna Hyatt Huntington.
Milmore's own monument, authored by Daniel Chester French, Death and the Sculptor remains one of America's "noble tributes.
Gutzon Borglum, an accomplished sculptor with such pieces as Seated Lincoln and a variety of other public monuments, oversaw the sculpture of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills in South Dakota.
On the left, often immigrant, often expressionistic, was the New York-based Sculptors Guild, with an emphasis on more current themes and direct carving in wood or stone.
Jim Gary created life-sized figures composed of metal washers and hardware almost invisibly welded together, as well as those of stained glass and even used automobile parts and tools in his sculptures.
Minimalists include Tony Smith, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Larry Bell, Anne Truitt, and Dan Flavin; Site specific and environmental art works are represented by artists: Donald Judd, Dennis Oppenheim, Richard Serra, Robert Irwin, George Rickey, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude led contemporary abstract sculpture in new directions.
Artists Bill Bollinger, Eva Hesse, Sol LeWitt, Jackie Winsor, Keith Sonnier, Bruce Nauman, and Lucas Samaras, among others were pioneers of Postminimalist sculpture.
Also during the 1960s and 1970s artists as diverse as Stephen Antonakis, Chryssa, Walter De Maria, Dan Flavin, Robert Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim, Robert Irwin, Claes Oldenburg, George Segal, Edward Kienholz, Duane Hanson, and John DeAndrea explored abstraction, imagery and figuration through Light sculpture, Land art, and installation art in new ways.
United States courts have consistently held that sculptors maintain an intellectual property right to sculptures and are entitled to compensation if photographs are used for commercial purposes.
On February 25, 2010, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled 2-1 that the Frank Gaylord, sculptor of the Korean War Veterans Memorial, was entitled to compensation because an image of it was used on a 37 cent U. S. postage stamp and he had not signed away his intellectual property rights.
In 2006, sculptor Frank Gaylord enlisted Fish & Richardson to make a pro bono claim that the U. S. Postal Service had violated his intellectual property rights to the sculpture and thus he should have been compensated.
The Postal Service argued that Gaylord was not the sole sculptor (saying he had received advice from federal sources – who recommended that the uniforms appear more in the wind) and also that the sculpture was actually architecture.
