Bernini: Sculpting in Clay

First exhibition to retrace Bernini’s unparalleled approach to sculptural design

The Kimbell Art Museum invites you to visit Bernini: Sculpting in Clay, the first-ever exhibition devoted to Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s brilliantly expressive preparatory models in clay. These intensely beautiful works – formed by the artist’s own hands – were the means by which he explored his ideas in three dimensions and presented them for review to his patrons.

To visualize life-size and colossal sculptures in marble and bronze, the great Baroque sculptor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, began by modeling small sketches in clay. Fired as terracotta, these studies are bold, expressive works in their own right. Together, with related drawings, they preserve the first traces of Bernini’s fervid imagination and unique creative process, which produced some of the most spectacular statuary in Rome, including the fountains in the Piazza Navona and the angels on the Ponte Sant’Angelo.

This exhibition features, for the first time, approximately forty of these terracotta sketch models shown together with 30 drawings. Due to unprecedented loans especially granted for this occasion, the exhibition is the first to retrace Bernini’s unparalleled approach to sculptural design and his impact on the fabric of Baroque Rome.

Bernini: Sculpting in Clay
The Kimbell Art Museum
Now – May 5
Tuesday - Thursday and Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Friday, Noon – 8:00 p.m.
Sunday, Noon – 5:00 p.m.
Closed Monday

The Kimbell Art Museum is located at 3333 Camp Bowie Boulevard, Fort Worth, Texas 76107.

NBC 5 is a proud sponsor of Bernini: Sculpting in Clay at the Kimbell Art Museum.
 

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