Outstanding!The Relief from Rodin to Picasso

Outstanding! The Relief from Rodin to Picasso, held last year in Frankfurt, was the first exhibition since 1980 to survey the modern history of relief sculptures. Its scholarly catalogue (edited by Alexander Eiling, Eva Mongi-Vollmer, and Karin Schick) is only the second English-language book on the subject, and the first—Relief Sculpture by L.R. Rogers—was published fifty years ago.

Outstanding! begins with an explanation of the three traditional categories of relief (bas-relief, haut-relief, and relief en creux), though the exhibition defined the relief more broadly: the impressive collection of works on display included examples of mixed-media assemblage and trompe-l’œil paintings. The catalogue was originally published in German as Herausragend! Das Relief von Rodin bis Picasso.