3rd Sculpture International was a 1949 exhibition of contemporary sculpture held inside and outside the

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin ...

, in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

, USA. It featured works by 250 sculptors from around the world, and ran from May 15 to September 11, 1949. The exhibition was organized by the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the

Association for Public Art Established in 1872 in Philadelphia, the Association for Public Art (formerly Fairmount Park Art Association) is the United States' first private, nonprofit public art organization dedicated to integrating public art and urban planning. The Assoc ...

) under the terms of a bequest made to the Association by the late Ellen Phillips Samuel. Ellen Phillips Samuel was a member of the Fairmount Park Art Association and a supporter of many cultural activities in Philadelphia. When she died in 1913, she left the bulk of her estate in trust to the Art Association, specifying that the income be used to create a series of sculptural monuments “emblematic of the history of America.” When these funds became available upon the death of her husband in 1929, the Art Association appointed a planning committee, which decided that the Samuel Memorial should express major ideas and spiritual forces as well as chronological developments in American history. To identify sculptors, the committee organized three international exhibitions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. These Sculpture Internationals, in 1933, 1940, and 1949, brought together the works of hundreds of sculptors from the United States and abroad. The exhibitions contributed not only to the Samuel Memorial but also to the general awareness of contemporary sculpture throughout the Philadelphia area.

Sculptors

Among the sculptors who exhibited were: *Humbert Albrizio * Connor Barrett * Richmond Barthé *

Gladys Edgerly Bates Gladys Edgerly Bates (July 15, 1896 – July 28, 2003) was an American sculptor known for her figure carving. Her work is in permanent collections at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She was a member o ...

Alexander Calder Alexander Calder (; July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) was an American sculptor known both for his innovative mobiles (kinetic sculptures powered by motors or air currents) that embrace chance in their aesthetic, his static "stabiles", and hi ...

* Cornellia Van A. Chapin *

Robert Cronbach Robert Cronbach (1908 – 2001) American sculptor and teacher, born in St. Louis, Missouri where he began his art studies. He is best remembered for his medals, architectural sculpture and other works. His art studies continued at the Pennsy ...

* Jo Davidson *

Jacob Epstein Sir Jacob Epstein (10 November 1880 – 21 August 1959) was an American-British sculptor who helped pioneer modern sculpture. He was born in the United States, and moved to Europe in 1902, becoming a British subject in 1911. He often produce ...

Mitchell Fields Mitchell Fields (1901 – 1966) was a Romanian-born American sculptor, known for his life-size sculptures, as well as for his portraits. Fields's works belong to the schools of Realism and Social Realism. Early life Mitchell Fields (né M ...

* Minna Harkavy * Vincent Glinsky * Chaim Gross *

Nathaniel Kaz Nathaniel Kaz (March 9, 1917 - December 13, 2010) was an American sculptor who was born in New York City. His parents were musicians and moved to Detroit when Kaz was young. It was in Detroit when he began his art studies with Samuel Cashwan. Af ...

Jacques Lipchitz Jacques Lipchitz (26 May 1973) was a Cubist sculptor. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915–16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, dominated by a synthetic style of ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Bernard Reder Bernard Reder (29 June 1897 – 7 September 1963) was an artist, sculptor, etcher, engraver and architect, born in Czernowitz, Bukovina, (Chernivtsi, Bokovina) part of Austria before World War II and a centre of Jewish and Hasidic culture. His ...

Marion Sanford Marion Sanford (February 9, 1904 - February 1987) was an American sculptor known for her bronze portraits of women engaged in everyday domestic activities. Early life and career Sanford was born to American parents in Guelph, Ontario and was ra ...

Concetta Scaravaglione Concetta Scaravaglione (July 9, 1900 – September 4, 1975) was an American sculptor. Her parents immigrated from Calabria, Italy, and Concetta was the youngest of nine children. She is known for her monumental figurative sculpture, her work fo ...

* Mitzi Solomon *

William Steig William Steig (November 14, 1907 – October 3, 2003) was an American cartoonist, illustrator and writer of children's books, best known for the picture book '' Shrek!'', which inspired the film series of the same name, as well as others that i ...

Marion Walton Marion Wetherill Walton aka Marion Walton Putnam (November 19, 1899 – December 11, 1996 ) was an American sculptor and teacher born in New Rochelle, New York. Early life and education She was the daughter oErnest Forster Waltonand music patro ...

* A.A. Weinman *

Robert Weinman Robert Alexander Weinman (March 19, 1915 – September 7, 2003) was an American sculptor and "one of the nation's most accomplished medallic artists." Weinman had impeccable credentials as a sculptor, His father, Adolph Weinman, was a well-r ...

* William Zorach

The photograph

The June 20, 1949, issue of ''Life'' magazine featured the photograph ''

70 Sculptors ''70 Sculptors'' is a photograph taken by ''Life'' photographer Herbert Gehr on May 14, 1949. The picture was published by ''LIFE'' in their June 20, 1949, edition, covering most of pages 112 and 113. That the picture used most of two pages wa ...

'' by

Herbert Gehr Herbert Gehr (later Edmund Bert Gerard) (1910–1983) was a Jewish German-American photographer and television director who was associated with ''Life'' magazine. Career In the Spanish Civil War Gehr worked as a stills photographer before travell ...

. It showed 70 of the sculptors seated on the staircase of the museum's Great Hall and surrounded by a number of their works. Gehr took the photograph on May 14, 1949, the day before the exhibition's opening. An intensive search has been underway since 2002 to identify all 70 sculptors in the photograph.

References

*3rd Sculpture International checklist. *Bach, Penny Balkin, ''Public Art in Philadelphia'', Temple University Press, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1992 *Fairmount Park Art Association ''3rd Sculpture International, Press Report'', 1949 *Kvaran, Einar Einarsson, ''Who Are These People?'' unpublished research into the 70 sculptors photographed by LIFE Magazine *''LIFE'' magazine, June 20, 1949 {{commonscat Sculpture exhibitions American contemporary art

Sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...

Contemporary art exhibitions Art exhibitions in the United States Philadelphia Museum of Art