Evanston, IL - Hans Arp, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore are among the abstract sculptors who pursued beauty through the perfection of form. As demonstrated in a new exhibition at Northwestern University’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Evanston campus, these artists searched for this ideal in sculpture as well as in prints and drawings.

The nearly 40 objects in this exhibition “Process of Abstraction: Two- and Three-Dimensional Work by Modernist Sculptors” (July 7 to Aug. 27), in the Block Museum’s Alsdorf Gallery and Outdoor Sculpture Garden, will show these artists experimenting with colors, shapes and materials on flat surfaces and in space.

Drawing from the Block’s permanent collections with loans from other institutions and collections, “Process of Abstraction” will juxtapose small and large scale sculptures with works on paper of varying sizes, revealing each artists’ unique visual language across different media and their abstract exploration of human and natural subjects.

On display, for example, will be three works by abstract art pioneer Hans Arp -- the monumental 1959 sculpture “Resting Leaf,” a bronze cast of the small-scale 1964 “Sculpture of Silence, Corneille” and the 1966 woodcut “Encircled Sun” -- which depict similarly irregular and swollen shapes drawn from organic forms and themes. 

Four works in the exhibition by Henry Moore show the British artist working in lithography, drawing and sculpture with variations on what he referred to as “internal” and “external” forms based on the human figure.  Moore’s contemporary Barbara Hepworth will be represented by four small and large scale sculptures and one lithograph which expose her affinity for ovals and spheres and interest in forms derived from nature.

The exhibition also will feature works by Alexander Calder, Lynn Chadwick, Alberto Giacometti, Jacques Lipchitz, Joán Miró, Elie Nadelman and Arnaldo Pomodoro.  “These artists are known primarily as sculptors, yet the works on display here speak to their mastery as printmakers and draftsmen,” said Block Museum Senior Curator Debora Wood.  “This exhibition recognizes their contributions to modern art beyond sculpture.”

In addition to highlighting the artists’ mastery of different media, the inclusion of sculpture in the exhibition will bring the viewer closer to the artistic process. “One interacts with a sculpture differently than a print or drawing,” added Wood. “You examine all planes of the sculpture in order to experience it in three dimensions, in a sense occupying the same physical space as the artist.”

Visit : www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu