George Sugarman : Painted Wood

American sculptor George Sugarman (1912–1999) was discarding the prevailing sculptural conventions of his time as early as 1959, dispensing with the pedestal and placing his work directly on the floor, breaking individual sculptures into multiple related units and employing a dramatic, almost baroque use of color. "In my sculpture, the color is as important as form and space," he wrote. "An important aspect is that the color is not used decoratively. It’s not used to be pretty or attractive. It is used to articulate the sculpture in space." Works such as "The Shape of Change" (1964), "Yellow and White" (1967) and "Threesome" (1968–1969) exemplify the radical spirit of Sugarman’s sculpture from this period. This publication offers an in-depth look at Sugarman’s work during the 1960s—large-scale wood sculptures of eccentric, proliferating forms painted in brilliant hues—and accompanies the most comprehensive presentation of the artist’s work in more than 25 years.