Art in New Orleans

1979 -- Three Figures and Four Benches, George Segal

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INTRODUCTION TO THE SYDNEY AND WALDA BESTHOFF SCULPTURE GARDEN
2002 -- Tree of Necklaces, Jean-Michel Othoniel
--- The 1970's ---
1970's -- Robert Indiana, LOVE, Red Blue
1979 -- Three Figures and Four Benches, George Segal
1975 -- Reclining Mother and Child, Henry Moore
1973 -- Four Lines Oblique, George Rickey
1971 -- Una Battaglia, Arnaldo Pomodoro
1979-80 -- Two Sitting Figures, Lynn Chadwick
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--- SECOND SEMESTER ---
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The Artist:

More George Segal

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Three Figures and Four Benches, 1979, George Segal (American, 1924-2000) painted bronze, 52” x 144” x 58”

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Regarded as one of the greatest American Pop Artists, George Segal’s figures are unmistakable. Segal grew up in New York City and attended New York University and the Pratt Institute. The artist began his artistic career as a painter and a student of Hans Hoffman. He gradually turned to sculpture because it enabled him to place humans in actual space. Like his fellow Pop Artists, Segal attempted to demystify art and make it ordinary and accessible. Segal often said that his goal was to capture the paradox of individual solitude in the midst of populous places. These figures are placed in an actual environment of a mundane situation, such as a lunch counter, movie ticket booth, bus interior, or, as in this case, a park bench. His works are usually created in plaster cast from an actual human figure and sometimes recast in bronze. Segal’s work expresses the loneliness and tensions of modern life. His sculptures have often been compared to the paintings of Edward Hopper, a fellow American who imbued his work with a sence of mystery and loneliness. Both men captured the moment by creating snapshots of modern life.

 

Three Figures and Four Benches, is an excellent example of Segal’s work as three figures are posed in an ordinary situation as if frozen in time. The three figures, intentionally rough and unfinished, sit near each other but do not communicate with each other. All three figures stare off into space wrapped up in their own thoughts. The viewer is forces to contemplate their relation-ship to each other and with their own environment.

What was going on the world during the decade this sculpture was completed?
 
 
 

1971 China joins the United Nations.

 

1972 J. Utzon completes the construction of the Sydney Opera House

 

1974-79 Judy Chicago creates The Dinner Party, the first large scale collaborative feminist work of art.

 

1974 Richard Nixon resigns from presidency; Gerald Ford becomes 38th President

 

1975 - 80  Piazza d’Italia constructed in New Orleans, heralding postmodernism.
 

1977 Apple II, the first personal computer, goes on sale

 

1979 Margaret Thatcher becomes first female British Prime Minister

 

1979 Mother Teresa awarded Nobel Peace Prize
 
1980 John Lennon shot and killed in NYC

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SegalAndMe.jpg Edit Picture

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Much information on this site courtesy of the New Orleans Museum of Art.