Top Ten

[Don Dougan <dondougan@zzzzzzzz>]

Hi All,

Choosing a top ten list is tough . . . top one hundred would be a lot
less work!

Alright, I'll give it a try -- but I will not limit myself to sculptors
- though I will limit myself to the last century or so, and they are
simply listed in non-preferential alphabetic order:

Francis Bacon
Hans Bellmer
Louise Bourgeois
Constantin Brancusi
Joseph Cornell
Jim Dine
Igor Mitoraj
Eric Gill
Andy Goldsworthy
Giacomo Manzu
Isamu Noguchi
Martin Puryear
Egon Schiele

Well, I couldn't do it -- I had to make it thirteen.  If I really had to
make it ten or die I suppose I'd start lopping off artists who are
mostly painters.

And, as a footnote, a newly upgraded addition to my top 100 would be
Kurt Schwitters. Although I had read about him and seen reproductions of
his work for years and thought I appreciated what he did, I had never
seen the work in person until a couple of months ago.  His 'merz' and
little known marquetry boxes are incredible!

But his work cannot (even in high resolution photographs) be reproduced
successfully -- if you have not seen his work in-the-flesh you cannot
know what it is (in all its wonderfully rich juxtapostions of subtle
textures).

Really, you can't . . . and the same limitations apply to Francis
Bacon's work, though what you don't see in reproduction in Bacon's work
is much less subtle than in Schwitters (some of Bacon's large scale
canvases have paint several inches thick alongside raw unprimed areas).

Good Carving to You,
Don

http://www.dondougan.homestead.com/indexdd.html