Rodger Dean

Rodger Mack was born on November 8, 1938, in Barberton, Ohio. He enrolled at the Cleveland Institute of Art as an industrial design student, and he was intent on using what he learned in college to advance in a career of car design. Mack received his BFA degree from the Cleveland Institute of Arts in 1961, and his MFA with a concentration in sculpture from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan in 1963. After graduating with his master’s degree, Mack received a Fulbright Scholarship. This allowed him to travel to Florence between 1963–64 to further his art education. While in Florence, Mack learned multiple casting techniques and created sixteen cast-bronze sculptures at the Bruno Bearzi Foundry. Shortly after Mack’s return from Florence, the governor of Arkansas asked him to help found the Arkansas Art Center, which offered a BFA degree program. Mack taught drawing, three-dimensional design, and ceramics, and also constructed a foundry with the help of students. After four years, however, the BFA program was terminated, and he elected to move on to other endeavors. In 1968, Syracuse University hired Mack as a sculpture professor. He received tenure in 1971, just a few short years after he began teaching, and between 1982–91, Mack served as the director of the University’s School of Art and Design in the College of Visual and Performing Arts. Throughout his lifetime, Mack exhibited his work nationally and internationally, and his sculptures were bought by many museums. Mack’s last large public commission was permanently installed at the New York State Fair Grounds in July 2002. Titled Missing in Action, it is a monolithic bronze sculpture memorializing lost soldiers. Mack passed away on September 16, 2002, in Syracuse.

Abstract sculpture has evolved over time with artists making a variety of striking statements in stone, bronze, ceramic and other materials. In the collection of abstract sculptures on 1stDibs, you are sure to find a piece that is perfect for your space.

When exploring how to arrange furniture and decor, consider color, texture and what kind of energy it should evoke. Abstract sculpture can elevate any home through its many decorative possibilities.

Auguste Rodin is often called the father of modern sculpture for his pioneering naturalistic forms and figures that vividly express emotion. His work in the 19th and early 20th centuries broke with artistic conventions and inspired modernism, leading to a new period of avant-garde abstraction.

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque were among the first artists to push abstract sculpture into the mainstream. They helped define the Cubism movement, which focused on deconstructing the world abstractly. Other 20th-century artistic movements, including Italian Futurism, Dadaism, Neo-Dadaism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, all contributed to the advancement of abstract sculpture. Italian Futurism, for example, celebrated movement, dynamics and technology in abstract sculpture. These movements continue to inform abstract sculpture today.

With abstract art — sculpture, painting or a grouping of prints — a work can complement a living room, dining room or other space, or it can act as a bold focal point.

Browse a range of modern abstract sculptures, postmodern abstract sculptures and other sculptures on 1stDibs.