This bookrecounts the engaging story of a French-Irish immigrant who became the greatest American sculptor of his day. During his lifetime Saint-Gaudens (1848–1907) both contributed to exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum and served as an advisor to its staff. After his death the Museum continued steadily to acquire his sculptures. Today it owns 45 of the sculptor’s works, ranging from delicate cameos and medals to innovative painterly bas-reliefs to stirring statuettes and portrait busts after Civil War monuments for East Coast cities. 
Thayer Tolles appraises Saint-Gaudens’s groundbreaking position in the history of late 19th-century American sculpture and the Aesthetic Movement, and she also addresses his role in advancing American art on the international stage.

Augustus Saint-Gaudens in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Arts & Photography

Tolles, Thayer

History & Criticism

Metropolitan Museum of Art

Themes of the American West have been enduringly popular, and The American West in Bronze features sixty-five iconic bronzes that display a range of subjects, from portrayals of the noble Indian to rough-and-tumble scenes of rowdy cowboys to tributes to the pioneers who settled the lands west of the Mississippi. Fascinating texts offer a fresh look at the roles that artists played in creating interpretations of the “vanishing West”—whether based on fact, fiction, or something in-between. These artists, including Charles M. Russell and Frederic Remington, embody a range of life experiences and artistic approaches. Some grew up in the West and based their artwork on first-hand experience, while others never set foot west of the Rockies. Four thematic sections—Indians, animals, cowboys, and settlers—are illustrated with new photography and provide a cultural overview to the works presented. Also included are biographies of the artists, each illustrated with a vintage portrait, plus an illustrated chronology of historical and artistic events.

The American West in Bronze, 1850–1925 (Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Smith, Thomas B.

Book by Tolles, Thayer, Dimmick, Lauretta, Hassler, Donna J.

American Sculpture in the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Sculpture

Thompson, Jerry L.

Marter, Joan M.

Hassler, Donna J.

Yale University Press / Metropolitan Museum of Art

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Books by Tolles, Thayer