The history of sculpture in the United States begins in the 1600s "with the modest efforts of craftsmen who adorned gravestones, Bible boxes, and various utilitarian objects with simple low-relief decorations."Craven, Wayne, ‘’Sculpture in America’’, Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, 1968, p. 1 American sculpture in its many forms, genres and guises has continuously contributed to the cultural landscape of world art into the 21st century.

Folk art There is frequently art in well-made tombstones, iron products, furniture, toys, and tools—perhaps better reflecting the character of a people than sculptures made in classical styles for social elites. One of these specific applications, the carving of wooden figureheads for ships, started in the Americas as early as 1750Pinckney, Pauline A. ‘’American Figureheads: And Their Carvers’’, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. NY 1940 p.29 and a century later helped launch the careers of Samuel McIntyre and the country's first famous sculptor, William Rush (1756–1833) of Philadelphia.Brewington, M.V., ‘’Shipcarvers of North America’’, Dover Publications, New York, 1972 c.1962 p. 26-40 The tradition begun then continues today in the folk sculpture style known as Chainsaw carving.

The Italian years In the 1830s, the first generation of notable American sculptors studied and lived in Italy, particularly in Florence and Rome, creating the Neoclassic style. At that time, Italy "provided the proper atmosphere, brought the sculptor close to the great monuments of antiquity, and provided museum collections that were available to study."Rogers, Millard F., ‘’Randolph Rogers: American Sculptor in Rome’’, University of Massachusetts Press, 1971 p. 13 They also gave the artists access to the carvers of Italy who translated their clay works into marble. During this period the themes from which the subjects of sculptural works were chosen tended to be drawn from antiquity, the exceptions being portraits (whose subjects were frequently shown wearing Roman or Greek garb) or works that included Native Americans. These artists included Horatio Greenough (1805–1852), Hiram Powers (1805–1873), Thomas Crawford (1814–1857), Thomas Ball (1819–1911) and his son-in-law William Couper (1853–1942), Harriet Hosmer (1830–1908), Chauncey Ives (1810–1894), Randolph Rogers (1825–1892) and (somewhat later) William Henry Rinehart (1825–1874).Crane, Sylvia E., ‘’White Silence: Greenough, Powers and Crawford, American Sculptors in Nineteenth-Century Italy’’, University of Miami Press, Coral Gables, 1972 p. xiii

19th-century American women sculptors

American women also became active sculptors during the Italian Period despite the sexism of the age. Among the women who acquired both commissions and fame were Edmonia Lewis, Harriet Hosmer, Anne Whitney, Vinnie Ream and Emma Stebbins).Rubenstein, Charlotte Streifer, ‘’American Women Sculptors: A History of Women Working in Three Dimensions’’, G. K. Hall and Co. Boston, 1990

The Paris years

In the decades following the Civil War American sculptors began more and more to go to Paris to study — falling in with the more naturalistic and dramatic style exemplified by the works of Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux (1827–1875) and Antoine-Louis Barye (1796–1875) and other French sculptors. Among these Americans were Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Frederick MacMonnies, and Daniel Chester French.

Home grown

American sculpture of the mid- to late 19th century was often classical and often romantic, but it showed a special bent for a dramatic, narrative, almost journalistic realism (especially appropriate for nationalistic themes) as witnessed by the frontier life depicted by Frederic Remington. This was the beginning of the style of "Western Art" that continued with Alexander Phimister Proctor and others through the 20th into the 21st century.

Animal sculptors (Animaliers)

The naturalism of the French school, exemplified by Antoine Barye, had a great impact on the first sculptors of American wildlife. The first generation of American animaliers included, Edward Kemeys, Edward Potter (who occasionally worked with Daniel Chester French, producing horses for his equestrian statues), Alexander Phimister Proctor (who executed mounts for Augustus Saint-Gaudens' riders), Charles Russell, Herbert Haseltine, Frederick Roth, Albert Laessle and Anna Hyatt Huntington.McKay, James, The Animaliers: A Collectors Guide to the Animal Sculptors of the 19th and 20th centuries, E.P. Dutton, New York, 1973

Public monuments The years following the American Civil War saw a huge increase in the number of public monuments erected in the United States. "By far the most prevalent monument features a fully equipped Confederate soldier (the same prototype held true for Union monuments) in a realistic pose."Widener, Ralph W., ‘’Confederate Monuments: Enduring symbols of the South and the War Between the States’’, Andromeda Press, Washington D.C. 1982, introduction This style of monument was popularized by sculptor Martin Milmore who created one of the first ones in 1868. Milmore's own monument, authored by Daniel Chester French, Death and the Sculptor remains one of America's "noble tributes."Taft, Lorado, ‘’The History of American Sculpture’’, The Macmillan Company, New York, 1925 p. 255

As the century closed, the pace of monument-building quickened in the great cities of the East, especially those erected to memorialize the Civil War. Several outstanding sculptors emerged, most of them trained in the beaux-arts academies of Paris. Daniel Chester French stands out, as do Frederick William Macmonnies, Hans Schuler, and Lorado Taft. This tradition continued to the 1940s with Charles Keck, Alexander Stirling Calder and others and the use of figurative sculpture in monuments persists into the 21st Century. After the middle of the 20th Century sculpture used in public monuments was increasingly abstract.

The decades following the Second World War saw a large number of monuments and memorials dedicated to the victims of the Holocaust.

Carving mountains There are at least three major mountain sculptures in the United States. These are Mount Rushmore, Stone Mountain, and Crazy Horse Memorial. Gutzon Borglum, an accomplished sculptor with such pieces as Seated Lincoln and a variety of other public monuments, oversaw the sculpture of Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills in South Dakota. The monument was finished after his death by his son Lincoln Borglum.

Gutzon Borglum also was responsible for starting the Stone Mountain project in Georgia but had a falling-out with its overseers. The monument was then taken up by Augustus Lukeman, who died during its carving in 1935. The memorial was finished by Walker Hancock and was considered complete in 1972.

The Crazy Horse Memorial in the Black Hills of South Dakota depicts the Oglala Lakota warrior Crazy Horse riding a horse and pointing into the distance. It was begun in 1948 by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski and continued after his death by his wife, Ruth Ziolkowski, who took over the helm of the project, and several of their children. The face was dedicated in 1998.

Architectural sculpture

Public buildings of the last quarter of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century provided an architectural setting for sculpture, especially in relief. Karl Bitter, Lee Lawrie, Adolph Alexander Weinman, C. Paul Jennewein, Rene Paul Chambellan, Corrado Parducci, and many others worked in the simple, sometimes narrative style that fit these spaces. Much of this work was created by anonymous sculptors and carvers.

Twentieth century

As the century began, many young European sculptors migrated to the free, booming economy across the Atlantic, and European trained sculptors account for much of the great work created before 1950. These include Elie Nadelman, Albin Polasek, Gaston Lachaise and Carl Milles.

Modern Classicism

Several notable American sculptors joined in the revitalization of the classical tradition at this time, most notably Paul Manship, who "discovered" archaic Greek sculpture while studying on a scholarship in Rome. C. Paul Jennewein and Edward McCartan were also leaders in this direction who fit easily with the art-deco tastes of the 1920s. In the 1930s and 1940s, the ideologies that rent European politics were reflected in associations of American sculptors. On the right was the group, mostly native-born, mostly old-school classical, mostly modelers of clay, who founded the National Sculpture Society, led by the heiress and sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington and preserved in the sculpture park that she endowed — Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina.

American Expressionism

On the left, often immigrant, often expressionistic, was the New York-based Sculptors Guild, with an emphasis on more current themes and direct carving in wood or stone. One of its better known members was William Zorach.

African-American sculptors

With the Harlem Renaissance, an African-American sculpture genre emerged. Richmond Barthé was an outstanding example. Augusta Savage was a sculptor and teacher. Richard Hunt was the first to have a retrospective show at the Museum of Modern Art in 1971. Other contemporary sculptors include Elizabeth Catlett, Martin Puryear, Jerry Harris, and Thaddeus Mosley.

Turn toward abstraction

Some Americans, such as Isamu Noguchi, had already moved from figurative to nonfigurative design, but after 1950, the entire American art world took a dramatic turn away from the former tradition, and America led the rest of the world into a more iconoclastic and theoretical approach to modernism.

Within the next ten years, traditional sculpture education would almost completely be replaced by a Bauhaus-influenced concern for abstract design. To accompany the triumph of abstract expressionist painting, heroes of abstract sculpture such as David Smith emerged, and many new materials were explored for sculptural expression. Louise Nevelson pioneered the emerging genre of environmental sculpture.

However, during this period a group of American sculptors persisted in creating works in their pre-war, modern/classical-style. These include Milton Horn, Donal Hord, Charles Umlauf, Joseph Erhardy, and John Henry Waddell.

Gallery of Modernist American sculpture

Pushing the boundaries of art

The figure returned in the 1960s, but without the beaux-arts figurative tradition, sometimes even as life-casts like those George Segal made with plaster. Jim Gary created life-sized figures composed of metal washers and hardware almost invisibly welded together, as well as those of stained glass and even used automobile parts and tools in his sculptures.

Concerns for the qualities of forms and design continued — but usually without representing a human figure. Minimalist sculpture by artists such as Richard Serra and Norman Carlberg often replaced the figure in public settings. Sculpture of the late 20th century was mostly a playful exploration of the boundaries of what could be called art.

Minimalism

The Minimalist style reduces sculpture to its most essential and fundamental features. Minimalists include Tony Smith, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Larry Bell, Anne Truitt, and Dan Flavin;

Site-specific movement

Site specific and environmental art works are represented by artists: Donald Judd, Dennis Oppenheim, Richard Serra, Robert Irwin, George Rickey, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude led contemporary abstract sculpture in new directions. Artists created environmental sculpture on expansive sites in the 'land art in the American West' group of projects. These land art or 'earth art' environmental scale sculpture works exemplified by artists such as Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, James Turrell (Roden Crater) and others The land art (earth art) environmental scale sculpture works by Robert Smithson, Michael Heizer, James Turrell and others.

Postminimalism