[Rarebooks] fs: Modern Sculpture- Common Book / Unusual Letter

[Joslin Hall Rare Books]

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Casson, Stanley.  SOME MODERN SCULPTORS.  London; Oxford University 
Press:1928.  An attempt not to survey the whole of modern sculpture, but 
rather certain key portions.  Casson begins with Rodin and others of the 
classical form, wends his way through Mestrovic and Rosandic, examines Eric 
Gill and Gaudier-Brzeska, and then concludes with Jacob Epstein and 
"Dramatic" sculpture.  Hardcover.  7"x10", 119 pages, plus 40 b&w plates; 
covers lightly faded.   [21526]  $125.00

Stanley Casson (18891944) was a multi-talented art scholar and army officer 
who read Classical Archaeology at Oxford, served as Assistant Director of 
the British School at Athens, Special Lecturer in Art at Bristol 
University, and was Director of British Academy Excavations at 
Constantinople in 1928-1929.  His publications include numerous articles 
and books on the subject of Classical Antiquities.  He also had two 
distinguished war records, starting the First World War as an officer with 
an infantry regiment in the trenches of Flanders before becoming part of 
the British Salonika Force in 1916 and finally serving on the General Staff 
in 1918.  His war poems, written in the Flanders mud,  are now part of the 
War Poetry Collection at Napier University in Edinburgh.  Starting in 1939 
he again served the BritIsh government in Holland, and later transferred to 
Greece where he was serving as a liaison officer when he was killed in a 
plane crash in 1944.

This interesting association copy was owned by Francis Henry Taylor 
(1903-1957), with three typewritten letters written to Taylor by Casson in 
the early 1930s.  A former Curator of Medaeval Art at the Philadelphia 
Museum of Art, Taylor was Director of the Worcester Art Museum at about the 
time of these letters, and eventually became Director of the Metropolitan 
Museum of Art.  The first letter simply greets him and extends Casson's 
admiration for an article Taylor wrote on Greek sculpture; the other two 
were evidently written after Taylor had taken a trip to London and the two 
had become friends.

A few excerpts give a general idea of the scholarly goings on:

"How precisely I got home after you had decanted me from the taxi I cannot 
say... Meantime I suggest a good line of research would be to find out if 
Miss R. keeps a statue of Hermes in her bedroom... By the way, Wilenski has 
just written a crazy book on "Modern Sculpture" that I find would serve as 
an admirable whipping post... Eric Gill, whom I saw on Sunday after our 
carouse, is commissioned to do some 150 full size figures on a new 
cathedral at Guildford..."  "As to the statue, actually I see no reason to 
doubt it and it really is a scoop... but there will be Hells own row in 
Greece... I cant imagine how on earth they get such things out without 
being spotted."


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