American Sculpture: Beyond Limits at Chatsworth House

Press Release

15 September - 12 November 2017

This year's edition of Sotheby's annual Beyond Limits show is set to bring the searing abstract vision of post-war American art to the rolling hills of Derbyshire in a one-off American-themed exhibition. In one of the most iconic settings in Britain, monumental sculpture by some of the foremost post-War American artists will be brought together to celebrate a revolutionary moment where freedom of expression met with unprecedented scale and ambition.

The first prominent open-air exhibition devoted exclusively to American post-war sculpture in the United Kingdom, the outdoor show will trace the ways in which leading artists have boldly experimented with new materials and techniques - from Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art to the rise of Minimalism and Conceptual Art. This follows on from the zenith of enthusiasm for American art witnessed in Britain in the past two years - Abstract Expressionism and Jasper Johns at the Royal Academy to Ellsworth Kelly at Tate Liverpool and American Dream at the British Museum.

Artists featured include Richard Serra, Mark di Suvero, Beverly Pepper and Tony Smith among many others. Together, the works of this extraordinarily vibrant generation feed

into an unfolding story of American art - with the rejection of traditional schooling and methods and the revolution in subject matter and scale.

Starting the trajectory with a moment of precise and powerful transition in the early Sixties, the exhibition explores how the American sculptors broke away from tradition - moving through abstraction to minimalism to pop art, all on a revolutionary scale. We are delighted to bring together the iconic voices in the history of the medium, in a display that explores their potent legacy.'

For behind-the-scenes footage and interviews please visit: www.sothebys.com/BeyondLimits

Source, steel painted black, 1967

'My own personal feeling is that all my sculpture is on the edge of dreams. They come close to the unconscious in spite of their geometry. On one level, my work has clarity. On another, it is chaotic and imagined'

A pioneer of American art, Tony Smith's large-scale geometric forms represent some of the finest achievements in American post-war sculpture. He enlarged simple three- dimensional shapes to confer drama through scale. Smith was also drawn to a sense of order set alongside disorder, with a result that is both forbidding and beautiful.

Originally a painter, Smith became a full-time architect

in the 1940s, and it wasn't until the late 1950s that he began to make sculpture. Indeed, his first exhibition of these large-scale sculptures was in 1964 and just three years later he was illustrated on the cover of Time Magazine with the head caption 'Master of the Monumentalists'.

This work is emblematic of Smith's output: imposing in scale, multi-faceted and painted in his signature black finish. The title is drawn from an 1894 painting by Gustave

Courbet, The Source of the Loue - a view of a rocky grotto at the source of a river in Eastern France, which Smith associated with the work of his Abstract Expressionist friends.

Barrier, cast white painted steel, 1962

'Simplicity of shape does not necessarily equate with simplicity of experience'

One of the earliest pieces in the exhibition, Barrier by Robert Morris signals an aesthetic and conceptual shift of seismic proportions, presenting something entirely new in the trajectory of post-war American sculpture. Morris was an early exponent of Minimalism, and one of its key theorists - setting forth a vision of art pared down to simple geometric shapes stripped of metaphorical associations. Minimalist sculpture is dependent on context and conditions, essentially upending the notion of the artwork as independent in and of itself. This interactive element is apparent in Morris' works, as his

'frameworks' all interrogate the conventional relationship between both the frame and its hypothetical content and its surroundings.

Originally a painter of abstract landscapes, Morris moved to New York in 1960 and his work underwent a dramatic change as he began to create monumental, repeated geometric forms, devoid of figuration, surface texture, or expressive content. These works forced the viewer to consider the arrangement and scale of the forms themselves, and how perception shifted as one moved around them.

Lock, hot-rolled steel, 1976-77

'Weight… placement… control'

One of the most influential artists in this field over the last half-century, Richard Serra has persistently and imaginatively challenged the

conventions of

traditional sculpture from his use of materials - and focus on their physical properties - to his involvement of the viewer.

Lock is one of just eleven large-scale outdoor steel sculptures that Serra made in the 1970s, formed of five separate elements that are not fused in any way - relying on the forces of gravity and a carfully balancing of the relative weights to achieve stability.

The process of viewing the sculpture demands a passage through and around the work, an experience that must take place as duration - therefore forcing the viewer to contemplate the passing of time. This concern is also apparent in Serra's choice of materials, as the deliberate yet uncontrollable rusting of the steel displays its intrinsic properties and the marks of time.

Exhibited first at the Whitney Museum, New York in 1977, Lock made its second public appearance at the Frieze Sculpture Park in London in 2015.

Untitled, painted bronze, 2011

'I wanted to be more grounded in the world. Of course, wanting that meant the work had to really depart - had to break away - from the space that it was in'

Weighing abstraction against figuration and balancing monumentality with agility in a seeming defiance of gravity itself, Untitled is a joyous expression of Joel Shapiro's mature work.

Joel Shapiro's explorations into the reconfiguration and repositioning of simple geometric form result in works that emanate movement and energy. A skilful colourist, he uses his command of different shades to alter the perceptions of a piece. This vibrantly painted bronze brings a

striking accent of colour to the dramatic scenery of Chatsworth.

The artist's early work was born from the Minimalist movement, and yet it expressed much of the artist's own emotional state. Whilst minimalism was intended to be non- referential, Shapiro was interested in the powerful psychological aspects of art. Thus, his works strike a careful balance between representation and abstraction - achieving a delicate figuration that