Finding 51: Margit Rowell Leading a Tour of The Planar Dimension: Europe, 1912–1932

February 25, 2011

This photograph documents a guided tour of the 1979 exhibition, The Planar Dimension: Europe, 1912–1932 led by the show’s curator, Margit Rowell. Rowell began her career at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum as a research fellow in 1969, and worked for the museum as a curator from 1970 to 1983. In The Planar Dimension, Rowell charted a trajectory of modern sculpture that abandoned traditional methods of carving and modeling in the round in favor of assembling two-dimensional forms in space. The exhibition began with Pablo Picasso’s 1912 construction, Guitar, and traced the development of this aesthetic through Cubism, Futurism, Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism. While the exhibition focused solely on examples of early 20th-century sculpture, the show was particularly relevant to contemporary trends in sculpture making. As Rowell pointed out in the exhibition’s brochure, “much of the sculpture of the 1960s and 1970s is conceived as an assemblage of planes in space. For the casual viewer, the history of this formal aesthetic begins with David Smith and Anthony Caro. Yet its real sources may be traced to the early decades of this century.”

–Amanda Brown, Archives Assistant