In this episode, we’ll be visiting An American Girl by Gerald Laing at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery. Welcome to Art, Culture & Books with me, Anthony King.
You’ll find the incredible An American Girl bronze by Gerald Laing at Inverness Museum and Art Gallery in Scotland. It was conceived in in 1977 and cast in 1978. He used his wife as his model and you can see the mix of naturalism with abstraction. This is one of an edition of ten (plus two artist proofs). He himself described the bronze:
“The headscarf is intended to be reminiscent of a US World War II helmet; it has always seemed to me that the large cranial size of these helmets gave US soldiers of the period a disturbing and paradoxical juvenile appearance. The contrast between the US helmet and the German one of the same period, which looks efficient and brutal, and the British one, which looks plain silly, like an upturned basin, is worth noting and the possible reasons for the difference is a fertile area for speculative conjecture. The pose of An American Girl is Romantic, driven by the expression of aggressive consumerism. She is disruptive to the viewer: confident, seductive and relaxed. The figure seems conscious of this, but at the same time it is self-contained, introspective, and completely independent. The geometric articulation of the spine and the almost landscape-like quality of the parts of the sculpture reinforce this enigmatic certitude, while other parts are extremely realistic, human and therefore vulnerable.”
By Anthony King (c)