George Segal: Street Scenes

Although he initially focused his efforts on painting, George Segal’s career took a turn in the early 1960s when he began making plaster casts of his family and friends to create life-size figures that he presented together with elements from everyday environments, such as chairs, benches, window frames, and other building fragments. Stimulating both the return to figuration and the rise of installation art in the 1960s and 70s, the work of George Segal (1924–2000) is widely recognized as one of the most important contributions to the art of the second half of the twentieth century.

This spring, the Nasher Sculpture Center will present the sculptor’s unique investigations of the human condition in the urban environment. Featuring 15 of Segal’s single- and multi-figure installations from the early 1960s to the end of his career in the 1990s, George Segal: Street Scenes is the first exhibition to offer a focused exploration of the themes of urban life in the artist’s work.

With New York City as his most steadfast muse, the full-scale recreations of scenes from everyday life in George Segal: Street Scenes address often-overlooked, yet poignant encounters with the city. In Cinema (1963), a ghostly plaster figure changes the lettering in the harsh light of the theatre marquee, revealing the often unseen labor that drives the city. Diner (1964–66) presents a quiet moment rippling with silent tensions: although the waitress and customer are the only two occupants of an otherwise empty restaurant, they are disengaged and seem to be in their own separate worlds.

Rush Hour (1983), from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection, captures a group of workers walking to work. They are clustered together, but do not seem to notice each other. Works like this, as well as Bus Passengers (1994) and Street Crossing (1992), reveal the sense of anonymity and psychological separation that often comes, ironically, in the midst of the crowded and dynamic city. In addition to their incisive observations of human behavior, these sculptures are also experiments in pure form: Segal intended the plaster figures and dark platform of Street Crossing as a dynamic composition in black and white.

In the 1980s and 90s, Segal’s work increasingly explored the reality of urban decay. Installations such as The Homeless (1989), Liquor Store (1994) and Dumpster (1994) highlight the deteriorating conditions in New York, incorporating or recreating elements like subway grates or graffiti-covered walls. These works rely more heavily on the photography that he and his friend, Donald Lokuta, would take on forays into Manhattan’s downtrodden neighborhoods like the Bowery and the East Village. Many of these photographs accompany the show and provide insight into the artist’s working methods and explorations of urban sites.

With subjects and settings that addressed commonplace situations, human values, and the burdens of economic hardship, these signature works caught the attention of the public and were broadly acclaimed by art critics, curators, art historians, and other artists. Among the many honors Segal received during his lifetime were the International Lifetime Achievement Award for Sculpture (1992), the National Medal of Honor (1999), and the commission to produce the sculptures for the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. The largest of these works, Depression Bread Line (1991), is featured in this exhibition.

Organized by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Madison, WI, the exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated hardbound catalogue with essays by Martin Friedman, Director Emeritus of the Walker Art Center, and Jane Simon, MMoCA Curator.

George Segal: Street Scenes