For nearly fifty years, John Van Alstine has created abstract sculptures forged from steel and stone. In John Van Alstine: Sculpture, 1971–2018, three notable essayists explore the sculptor’s abstract landscapes that reveal the complex synergy between natural forces and man-made elements; by grappling with the challenges of balancing stone and steel, Van Alstine’s indoor, outdoor, and site-specific sculptures are measured and calculated, yet simultaneously poetic; their swooping angular lines create expansive spaces beyond the limits of their stone-and-steel frames to unveil our collective history and imagination, illuminating a deft interplay of natural energies and the human experience.
The artist weaves into his works elements of mythology, celestial navigation, implements, human figures, movement, urban forms, and found objects, while using motion, balance, and inertia to incorporate the eternal forces of gravity, tension, and erosion. In an essay on his drawings, Van Alstine details the critical role they play in the initiation and planning of his projects, offering the reader a firsthand perspective on the artist’s creative process. Van Alstine’s works have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions and are found in the permanent collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, and the Phillips Collection, to name but a few. His works are also found in numerous public and private collections. The Artist Book Foundation is gratified to announce the publication of this lavishly illustrated monograph on an esteemed and prolific contemporary artist.

Howard Fox is a former senior curatorial fellow of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and former curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. Tom Moran was the chief curator and artistic director at Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey. A sculptor in his own right, he has lectured on public art around the country. He has taught at Rutgers University as well as at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Tim Kane is a journalist, independent curator, and art critic who has authored numerous articles and art reviews on contemporary artists.

Contents: 7
Foreword | Howard N. Fox: 9
John Van Alstine: Momentum, Myth, And Inevitability | Tom Moran: 13
Tipping the Balance | Howard N. Fox: 17
Reconfiguring the Figure | Tim Kane: 33
Drawing | John Van Alstine: 53
Sculpture: 61
Drawings: 207
Acknowledgments: 241
Chronology: 243
Selected Grants, Fellowships, Awards, Media Coverage, and Lectures: 253
Selected Collections, Commissions, and Installations: 257
Selected Group and Solo Exhibitions: 261
Selected Bibliography: 269
Photography Credits: 275
Index: 277
Copyright Page: 280

Today, Van Alstine’s art is testimony to the durability, the versatility, and the richness of that sculptural vocabulary. In recent years, his sculptures are both immediately apprehensible paeans to physical balance and material equipoise, yet they are also finessed configurations of abstract forms wrought in steel and stone—the materials that have constituted his sculptural “voice” over the decades. They are accomplished compositions juxtaposing precise Pythagorean geometry—circles, squares, planes—with his skillful fabrication to create études in harmony and counterpoint that are best described as nearly balletic in their poise and their sense that they might fall apart in a second—but they don’t! John Van Alstine’s art is an expression of pure visual theatricality and masterful control over his materials.