C'est Si Bon

Nasher partners with world's top museums for unrivaled French sculpture archive

The Nasher Sculpture Center has partnered with five other institutions, including four in France, to launch the French Sculpture Census, a digital archive of 7,000 French sculptures dating between 1500 and 1960 that are found in American museums, public buildings, historic homes and estates, or displayed in public space.

Partners for the census, which is the first of its kind, include the University of Texas at Dallas, Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, Musée d’Orsay, Musée Rodin and Ecole du Louvre in Paris. It is directed by Laure de Margerie, former senior archivist of sculpture at the Musée d’Orsay and current research fellow at UTD.

“The French Sculpture Census marks an important contribution to the study of the history of taste, the building of American museum collections, the development of the art market and the transatlantic art trade,” said de Margerie in a release.

The website is offered in both English and French and gives great detail for the breadth, quality and diversity of 500 years worth of French sculptures collected in the United States. De Margerie hopes that it will be a valuable resource for curators, historians, students and anyone else interested in French sculpture.

Users can search sculptures by artist, place of birth and death, gender, type of sculpture, medium, period, or location. Results also include a list of exhibitions, descriptions of sculpture techniques and more.

In all, the site features comprehensive information for works by 690 artists in 305 locations nationwide, including 23 in Texas. The goal is to increase the content to include between 15,000-20,000 sculptures.

UTD is funding and contributing resources to de Margerie’s research; the Nasher built the website and will host and maintain it.

Jacques Lipchitz, Andirons commissioned by Jacques Doucet, c. 1928, gilt bronze, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Charlotte F. and Irving W. Rabb and Insurance Fund, 1986.5-6.

Photo courtesy of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Jacques Lipchitz, Andirons commissioned by Jacques Doucet, c. 1928, gilt bronze, Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Gift of Charlotte F. and Irving W. Rabb and Insurance Fund, 1986.5-6.

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Arts in Fort Worth

DFW museum debuts landmark exhibition about Statue of Liberty

Amon Carter Museum of American Art presents "The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol"

Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi (1834–1904), Early View of the Statue of Liberty, n.d.,, watercolor, Musée Bartholdi, Colmar, 2005.0.16.3, © Musée Bartholdi, Colmar, Photo Chr. Kempf

"The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol" opens at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art on August 15.

The Amon Carter Museum of American Art will celebrate the United States' 250th anniversary with a major exhibition examining one of the country's most recognizable symbols: "The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol" will open Saturday, August 15 for a nearly five-month run.

The exhibition, co-organized by the Denver Art Museum, is an examination of the Statue of Liberty’s enduring relevance in American visual culture and the evolution of its image from the 1870s to the present.

According to a release, it will bring together nearly 100 artworks and objects from more than 70 artists, exploring the statue’s varied manifestations - from artistic marvel and pop culture icon to symbol of immigration, patriotism, and resistance.

Successive generations of artists who have represented the statue's iconic form over the past 150 years will be included in the exhibition, including Pacita Abad, Benny Andrews, Edward Moran, Norman Rockwell, Nari Ward, and Andy Warhol.

The exhibition is anchored by a rare cast of French sculptor Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi’s bronze sculpture Liberty Enlightening the World (Statue of Liberty) (1894-1901), one of only five domestic-scale bronze reductions made during the artist’s lifetime.

The exhibition will be broken up into four distinct sections:

Creating a Monument, which focuses on the statue’s origins and initial public reception in the tumultuous decades between the American Civil War and World War I.
A National Monument, which showcases the way society and visual culture were inundated with Statue of Liberty imagery between World War I and the 1950s. The installation of newspapers, advertisements, lithographs, images, films, and paintings demonstrate the turning point in the statue’s transformation into a dominant American icon.
Reimagining an Icon, which explores pop art and reproductions of the statue’s imagery, demonstrating its increasing detachment from its original image and malleability as an American symbol.
The Statue of Liberty Today, which closes the exhibition with a selection of works by living artists who have continued to investigate the Statue of Liberty’s meaning in the 21st century.

“This monumental exhibition tells the story of how our nation has interpreted the Statue of Liberty not only as a national icon, but also as a reflection of American values, creativity, and identity throughout our collective history,” said Scott Wilcox, Interim Director of the Carter, in a statement. “Premiering 'The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol' in Fort Worth on the occasion of the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding invites our community to see this emblematic statue in new dimensions.”

"The Statue of Liberty from Bartholdi to Warhol" will remain on display through January 3, 2027.

It will then travel to Denver for a presentation from March 14-July 4, 2027. The exhibition will also travel to the Munson Museum of Art in Utica, New York, from August 5-December 5, 2027.

The Amon Carter Museum will celebrate the opening with a special event called "Liberty Talks" on August 15 from 11 am-3 pm, featuring gallery talks, live music, poetry, treats, and more. A second event, "Second Thursdays: Monuments & Martinis," will take place September 10 and include Statue of Liberty-inspired flash tattoos by Fort Worth artist Joseph Ayala of Panther City Tattoo.

Admission to the Carter is free.

amon carter museum exhibitions-visual-arts museums statue of liberty