Modernist sculptor Robert Laurent pioneered the revival of “direct carving” in the United States. For this centuries-old technique, an artist works with hammer and chisel to manipulate wood or stone, drawing upon the inherent properties of the material itself for the composition. This intimate, improvisational, hands-on approach was in stark contrast to traditional academic sculpture, for which artists create carefully planned models in clay or plaster to be translated into marble, wood, or bronze by skilled artisans. Modern artists working in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Paul Gauguin and others championed the raw energy and emotional dimension they saw in historical vernacular works made with direct carving and strove to capture it in their own creations.

Born in France, Laurent came to the United States as a child through the support and patronage of American artist and art critic Hamilton Easter Field. Together, the two established Avant Garde artist communities in Brooklyn, New York and Ogunquit, Maine, where Field collected and actively promoted work made by non-academically trained artists, including hobbyists, skilled artisans, even children. By heralding the aesthetic qualities of such works, Field, Laurent, and other like-minded American modern artists and collectors invented a new category of art that came to be known as American Folk Art. Weaving together influences from European modernism, traditional African carved wood sculpture, vernacular traditions of the stonecutters from his native Brittany, France, and the newly recognized folk traditions of his adopted home in the United States, Laurent developed his own individualistic, yet distinctively modern style. The fluid, languorous bathing scene of this mahogany panel reveals Laurent’s indebtedness to the woodcarvings of Gauguin and the modernist principals of Picasso, Matisse, and Cézanne, as well as his interest in the “authentic” nature of American folk art.

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