"It is appropriate yet ironic that the Berkshire home and studio of Daniel Chester French has served for 25 years as the site for one of the country’s outstanding contemporary sculpture exhibitions.”
Elliot Offner, National Sculpture Society

Chesterwood is the country home and studio of Daniel Chester French (1850-1931). French is best known as a monumental sculptor of two of our nation’s most powerful works, The Minute Man (1875) in Concord, MA, and the seated Abraham Lincoln (1922) in the memorial in Washington, DC. He was one of the most important artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a period in which architects and artists were commissioned to create monuments and buildings that linked America with other great nations and civilizations. The legacy of the “American Renaissance” still can be seen in public buildings and sculpture as well as in urban parks throughout the country.

In keeping with the quarter-century tradition of Contemporary Sculpture at Chesterwood, an annual outdoor exhibition, sculptors submit work encompassing a wide range of styles, materials, and forms. Figurative and non-figurative sculpture as well as site-specific installations are included in the show. Excellence in design and fabrication is critical, and a hallmark of the exhibition.

The 2005 guest curator is Donna Hassler, Executive Director of the Rensselaer County Historical Society, an art historian with a particular interest in sculpture. She previously worked as a curator at the Hyde Collection and curatorial assistant in the Department of American Paintings and Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.