Word: davidson
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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BETWEEN SITTINGS (369 pp.)-Jo Davidson-Dial...
...most stifling August day in history." In his studio in Manhattan's McDougal Alley, Sculptor Jo Davidson was modeling a World War I statue, to be entitled France Aroused. Gobbets of clay and drops of sweat impacted into a hot mulch in his bottomless black beard. "Why don't you shave it off?" tittered his model, who was posing coolly without a stitch. Davidson flew out to the barber, soon emerged as smooth as Tweedledee. When he got home, Mrs. Davidson took one look at the close-cut sward and shrieked: "You are awful-you are terrible...
Ever since, Jo Davidson has let his beard grow. Today it is the finest growth of anti-freeze known to U.S. art since Walt Whitman's-in fact, New York Park Commissioner Robert Moses, unveiling Davidson's statue of Whitman in Bear Mountain Park, declared himself "not quite sure whether this is a statue of Walt Whitman by Jo Davidson or a statue of Jo Davidson by Walt Whitman...
Gandhi & Greatness. Hairy charm is not, however, Davidson's only contribution to art. His admirers believe that, at 68, he is the greatest living sculptor. His critics argue that this is true only if, by sculpture, is meant the art of making speaking likenesses. For jovial Jo has never been one to conjure up abstractions or depict the unseen "soul" of his sitters. He takes people, quite literally, at their face value. When the face wears a mask (as he finds most faces do), Jo waits for the moment when the mask slips-and pounces...
...Yoorup for Culture. Author Davidson dips into newspapers, letters, diaries and popular songs for added flavor. Whittling, reported a visiting Englishman, Captain Frederick Marryat, "is a habit, arising from the natural restlessness of the American when he is not employed." The New York Evening Post complained (in 1828) about the new fad of men playing ball in the city: "The annoyance has become absolutely intolerable . . . and ought to be put an end to without delay." A generation later, a teamster who had struck it rich in Nevada passed a verdict on U.S. culture: "Ther arn't no chance...