Modernism

JOHN BRADLEY STORRS
(American, 1885-1956)

Pietà, about 1919
Marble and polychrome
Given in Memory of Dorothy Norton Clay by her family 2003.1
© Estate of John Storrs, courtesy Valerie Carberry Gallery, Chicago, IL

A pioneering American modernist, John Storrs established his own distinctive style based on Analytic Cubism and Futurism. Storrs was one of the first to translate these modern movements—which started in painting—into the three dimensions of sculpture.

As an expression of profound grief for lives lost during World War I, Pietà is one of the most emotionally eloquent of Storrs’s works. The Pietà, which means “pity” in Italian, is traditionally represented as the Virgin Mary mourning over the body of the dead Christ cradled in her lap. Storrs inverted this by showing the kneeling Virgin bearing Christ’s body on her back to emphasize the terrible burden of her son’s death.

Storrs carved the two figures from a solid block of white marble. He employed Cubist-inspired faceted planes, lines, and angles and emphasized certain planes with red, black, and green paint. Lines suggest energetic movement on one side of the piece, while on the opposite side simple faceted planes and minimal polychrome endow the Virgin with quiet monumentality.