In a 1968 letter to the editor of Artforum, Barnett Newman declared, "I do not believe in the unique piece in sculpture when sculpture is cast or fabricated. The unique piece in sculpture can exist only when one is carving stone." Newman objected to critic Andrew Hudson's characterization of one of the two exemplars of Broken Obelisk as a "copy." Instead, Newman felt both sculptures in the edition were in fact originals, calling them "identical twins."

This idea would have been completely foreign to nineteenth-century sculptors working in Italy with huge teams of carvers to churn out multiples of neoclassical works such as Hiram Powers' Greek Slave or Randolph Rogers' Nydia. Why did Newman feel the need to qualify "copies" vs. "editions," and what happened in sculpture in the decades before he made that statement to make that qualification necessary?

To answer these questions, this session invites papers that examine the place of multiples in sculpture during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Questions addressed might include: how to distinguish between copies, originals, editions, and replicas; how sculpture's multiplication has affected its reception or commodity value; factors that have influenced sculptors' decisions involving multiples; methods of replicating sculpture; and workshop practices.

Information about SECAC, abstract guidelines and submission procedures available at: http://www.secollegeart.org/conference

Please use SECAC's online form and submit your abstract and CV no later than midnight on April 20, 2013.

Thank you,
Amanda Douberley, University of Texas at Austin, douberley@utexas.edu and Sarah Beetham, University of Delaware, sbeetham@udel.edu