Body Shop

Comprising works from the early twentieth century to the present day, Body Shop considers works by several diverse artists for whom the human figure is a recurring motif and a significant source of renewal and invention. Spanning generations and styles, the artists in Body Shop share a tendency toward fragmentation, distortion and pastiche – all aspects of the grotesque. A 1914 terra cotta sculpture by German artist Wilhelm Lehmbruck, one of the earliest work in the exhibition, embodies the general spirit of the works on view. An important early Modernist sculptor, deemed “degenerate” in the years following his death, and later highly revered by future generations of artists, Lehmbruck synthesized Romantic, Gothic and Mannerist influences with the Neoclassical tradition from which he emerged, creating deeply expressive truncated busts and elongated figures.