Sculpture and the Decorative in Britain and Europe

Imogen Hart is Adjunct Assistant Professor of History of Art, University of California, Berkeley, USA.Claire Jones is Lecturer in History of Art, University of Birmingham, UK.

The rich case studies offered in this volume cumulatively propose a new framework for the study of three-dimensional representation, from figure to filigree. Its authors interrogate the unstable boundaries and porous relationships between sculptures and decorative objects, attending to contexts as varied as the architectural, the ceremonial, the national, the nautical, and the conceptual. Sculpture and the Decorative is the rare anthology that offers a broad chronological range—from the musical metaphors of 17th century altarpieces to institutional critique’s reliance on the found object—in combination with a lively conversation among authors about the received terms through which art histories are narrated.

• List of FiguresList of ContributorsAcknowledgements1. Sculpture and the decorative: towards a more integrated mode of art history writing, Imogen Hart (University of California-Berkeley, USA) and Claire Jones (University of Birmingham, UK)2. “Exulting and adorning it in exuberant strains”: Music, figuration and ornamentation in Abel Schrøder’s altarpiece (Skt Morten in Næstved, Denmark), Margit Thøfner (Independent Scholar)3. Galathea: Ships, sculpture and the state in Golden Age Denmark, Michael Hatt (University of Warwick, UK)4. An allegory of civic virtue: Sculpture and ornament in St George’s Hall, Liverpool, Katie Faulkner (Courtauld Institute of Art, UK)5. Sculpture and the decorative in fin-de-siècle Brussels: Women as creators and consumers, Marjan Sterckx (Ghent University, Belgium)6. “Sacred stones guarded about with dragons”: Welsh national identity in William Goscombe John’s Corn Hirlas (1898), Melanie Polledri (Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales)7. Sculpture and the decorative at the Scottish National War Memorial, Imogen Hart (University of California-Berkeley, USA)8. Ornament and monument in German sculpture, 1910–1930: Milly Steger and Renée Sintenis, Nina Lübbren (Anglia Ruskin University, UK)9. Modernist sculpture and the decorative: Henri Laurens with Robert Mallet-Stevens and Le Corbusier, Anna Ferrari (Royal Academy London, UK)10. The decorative arts as found object: Converging domains for contemporary sculpture, Lisa Wainwright (School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA)11. Gross domestic product: Contemporary British ceramics and the subversion of the monument, Laura Gray (Independent Art Historian)12. Fabrication and failure: Hacking the decorative in contemporary British art, Bridget O’Gorman (Artist and Researcher)Index