Maquettes and sketches emerge from the most personal moments of a sculptor’s studio practice. These objects reveal how artists work out concepts, explore forms, and experiment with different materials in developing their finished works. This exhibition brought these essential items from the studio into the gallery, presenting objects related to artworks in The Kreeger Museum’s Sculpture Garden by Kendall Buster, Richard Deutsch, John L. Dreyfuss, Carol Brown Goldberg, Dalya Luttwak, and Foon Sham. Many of the works in this show were presented in view of their outdoor counterparts.

These works were crafted in a surprising range of substances, from Dreyfuss’s wax, aluminum, and 3D-printed plastic maquettes to Sham’s acrylic model built using hand-cut, transparent bricks. In practice, the objects all served a particular purpose. For instance, Deutsch and Goldberg each used their maquettes as a first stage of collaboration with their quarry and foundry, while Buster and Luttwak constructed their models in order to learn from their materials and further hone their compositions. These objects—sourced from the artists’ collections and rarely shown to the public—offered significant insight into the creation of and innovations behind the making of outdoor sculpture.