Elsa W. Hutzler
The City
1950-1952
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Elsa W. Hutzler
The City
1950-1952
Physical Qualities
Steel, pewter, Overall: 44 x 19 1/2 x 8 1/2 in. (111.8 x 49.5 x 21.6 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Lion Brothers Company, Inc.
Object Number
1961.17
Elsa Hutzler captured the shifting angles and vertical thrust of a growing metropolis by cutting and welding steel—a common material in building industrialized modern cities and in Abstract Expressionist sculpture of the 1950s. Sculptors of the time favored welded metal for its individuality and immediacy, since welding allowed the artist to build a line or quickly improvise a form. Hutzler’s composition balances geometric grids with linear entanglements and hovers between sculpture and architecture. The City won first prize in an exhibition at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1952.
Virginia Anderson, The Baltimore Museum of Art, "By Their Creative Force: American Women Modernists," October 6, 2019 — July 5, 2020
On View at the BMA
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