Featuring a selection from Sheldon’s collection of modern sculpture, the exhibition focuses on sculptural depictions of the human form by twentieth-century female artists.

The five works, made between the early 1940s and the early 1990s, showcase a wide range of sculptural materials available to artists at the time: white and black marble in the work of Hannah Small and Marion Walton; painted bronze used by Louise Bourgeois; steel and brass skillfully welded together by Mary Callery; and a proprietary technique of plaster over steel covered with graphite, developed by Mary Ann Unger.

The intentional grouping follows the arc of modern art: from realistic representation in busts and full-body figures, through sculpture as a visual metaphor, to fully abstract, if still highly persuasive, forms.  Taken together, they shift perspective from a female subject as an artist’s model to that of the author herself.

Bodies, by Women was organized by Magdalena Moskalewicz, chief curator and associate director for curatorial affairs.