For over a century the majority of America’s major sculptors chose one particular foundry to cast their works in bronze. That foundry was the Roman Bronze Works and its castings (and often the initials R.B.W.) represent a vast and fascinating collection of sculptures, ranging from the monuments of French and Saint-Gaudens to the cowboys of Remington and Russell, from the grand and graceful figures of Paul Manship and the charming salon pieces of Bessie Potter Vonnoh, to the brilliant abstractions of Archipenko and Calder. To study the ledgers and archival photographs of Roman Bronze Works is to see the unfolding of American sculpture through the 20th century, for here are examples from the many schools and “isms” that locked the nation’s art world in titanic battles between realism and modernism and the many significant styles in between. Over 700 photographic examples (many in color) and biographical information about over 120 sculptors make up this book, the first to examine R.B.W.’s role in American art.
