George Segal: Street Scenes
September 5 ― December 6, 2009

Born in the Bronx in 1924 to Jewish emigrants from Eastern Europe, Segal is best known for his figurative sculptures made of white plaster. Using a technique typically associated with casts and the medical field, George Segal developed a facile method to make sculptures that could capture the essence human spirit. Rising to prominence alongside the painting of Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol, Segal was often associated with the Pop art movement of the 1960’s. Segal’s sculptures were direct and powerful populist critiques on the way we live and interact with others. George Segal: Street Scenes will premier at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art on September 12, 2008 and then will travel to the Nasher Sculpture Center and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art from January through early August 2009.

Listen to cell phone tour selections from the exhibition here.

Organized by the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art.

Generous funding for George Segal: Street Scenes has been made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius; Bill and Jan DeAtley; Whyte Hirschboeck Dudek S.C.; Daniel Erdman; Associated Bank; the Steinhauer Charitable Trust; J.H. Findorff & Son; CUNA Mutual Group; the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission with additional funds from the Overture Foundation; and Gina and Michael Carter.
Local presentation of this exhibition is made possible in part through the generosity of John and Priscilla Richman, Harold and Anne Berkley Smith, the Dr. Henry and Lois Foster Endowment of Contemporary Art and the Diane Belfer Endowment for Sculpture.