True to his surname, Medardo Rosso was a fiery spirit who escaped ottocento realism to become one of the progenitors of modern sculpture. Curated by Dieter Schwarz of the Kunstmuseum Winterthur, this show of some forty sculptures and twenty-five drawings surveys the artist’s brief career, from the detailed genre subjects of the early 1880s to the figures melting into environments from the following decade. Rosso urged viewers to “forget the material,” but he obviously loved it himself, embracing plaster and wax rather than treating them as mere stages in bronze casting. (A concurrent show organized by the Harvard University Art Museums focusing on Rosso’s casting process offers a nice complement to this retrospective.)
Sept. 6–Nov. 23; Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Dec. 14–Feb. 20.
