The FIgure in American Sculpture: A Question of Modernity presents American modernist sculpture in its larger cultural and social context. With the example of Auguste Rodin for inspiration, Americans at the turn of the century began to thinkof sculpture as a personal mode of expression, abandoning the commemorative function of late nineteenth-century art. During the first four decades of this century sculptors documented ordinary activities, often attacking the social ills of the day, and found escape from the technological advancements and materialism of American society by turning to cultures historically or geographically distant. As the works in The Figure in American Sculpture demonstrate, the result was that genre, classicism, archaism, and the search for the exotic became popular themes, enticing a greater number of progressive artists than did pure abstraction.

Sculpture in general became less elitist. Many more women, African Americans, and member of other previously marginalized groups became active in the sculpture community. While past studies have isolated artists according to race, ethnic group, and gender, The Figure in American Sculpture is the first to place minorities in the mainstream. Consequently, the names of many of the sculptors represented here will be unfamiliar but in their own day they all received critical attention for their willingness to experiment with new concepts, styles, techniques, materials, and themes.