Biografie von John Bradley STORRS (1885-1956)

Birth place: Chicago, IL

Death place: Mer, France

Addresses: Chicago/Orleans, France, 1915-38; permanently at Orleans, thereafter

Profession: Sculptor, painter, engraver

Studied: Arthur Bock in Hamburg, Germany, 1906-08; AIC, 1908-09, with Charles J. Mullligan, briefly with Bela Pratt at BMFA School, 1910; Caroline Wade & L. Taft; PAFA, 1911-11, with Grafly; Paul Bartlett, Paris, 1911; Académie Julian, Paris, 1912; Rodin in Paris, 1913-14.

Exhibited: Salon d'Automne, Paris, 1913; Soc. Nat. des Beaux Arts, 1914; Paris Spring Salon, 1914; Pan-Pacific Expo, 1915; Gal. de Luxembourg, Paris, 1917, 1919 (Exh. of Artists of the American School"), 1920; AIC, 1917 (etchings), 1918, 1927-39 (annuals); Folsom Gal., 1920 (1st solo), which traveled to the Arts Club, Chicago; Soc. Anonyme, 1923 (solo); Milwaukee AI, 1925 (solo); Salons of Am., 1924, 1934; "Int. Exh. of Modern Art Arranged by Soc. Anonyme," Brooklyn Mus., 1926; Brummer Gal., NYC, 1928 (solo); Knoedler Gal., NYC, 1928 (solo, silverpoint drawings); Albert Roulier Gals., Chicgao, 1928-38 (solos); Downtown Gal., NYC, 1930-35 (paintings); Century of Progress Expo, Chicago, 1933; PAFA Ann., 1934; WMAA, 1933 (annual); 1935 (Abstract Painting in America), 1986 (solo); "Exh. of Contemporary Sculpture," Carnegie Inst., 1938; Municipal Library, Orleans, France, 1949 (solo); Stirling & Francine Clark Art Inst., Williamstown, MA, 1980 "

Member: Soc. Anonyme; Chicago AC; Cliff Dwellers; Tavern Club.

Work: LACMA; WMAA; AIC; figure of Ceres, for top of Chicago Board Trade building, 1928

Comments: Avant-garde sculptor who spent much of his career in France (he married a French author in 1915 and split his time between Ameria and France until 1938). About 1918 he began modeling and carving figures that combined elements of Cubism and Futurism, as well as decorative motifs from Native American art (which he began collecting after a trip West in 1915). Storrs' figural works became more architectonic and abstract in the early 1920s, and in the mid-1920s he began a series of columnar non-objective sculptures that celebrated skyscraper forms. Storrs was passionate about the beauty of the modern skyscraper and wrote of his belief that sculpture should respond to these forms (see John Storrs, Museum of Artists," Little Review, vol. 9, winter, 1922). About the same time, and into the 1930s, Storrs explored other non-representational forms in sculptural compositions which more strongly reflected a machine aesthetic. Storrs began painting in 1930, but returned to non-commissioned sculpture in 1934. During WWII, he was interned in a Nazi prison camp for six months (at Compeigne, 1941-42) and jailed for another six months in a Nazi prison (at Blois, 1944).

Sources: WW40; John Storrs & John Flannagan: Sculpture & Works on Paper (Williamstown, Mass.: Stirling and Francine Clark Art Inst., 1980); Noel Frackman, John Storrs (exh. cat., WMAA, 1986); Fort, The Figure in American Sculpture, 224-26 (w/repro.); W. Homer, Avant-Garde Painting and Sculpture in America, 136; American Abstract Art, 199; Falk, Exh. Record Series.