Excerpt from Catalogue of the International Exhibition of Contemporary Medals

The revised edition has been a somewhat laborious undertaking, inas much as it was imperative to return the medals immediately upon the con elusion of the exhibition, and the material which it was subsequently planned to incorporate in the new edition had to be secured by correspon dence. The Society desires to thank the artists cordially for their great assistance in facilitating the expansion of the descriptive lists and the re vision of the biographical notices. Thanks are also due to Dr. W. R. Martin Librarian of The Hispanic Society of America, for reading the proof of the first edition, and translating many newly added biographies in the second. Some of the material for the sketches given in the first edition was freely drawn from Mr. L. Forrer's Biographical Dictionary of Medalists, and for the new edition Mr. Forrer has kindly sent us certain information which we had been unable to obtain. The artists were urged to give full details, and only in a few instances are the biographies less complete than might be wished. The f orm of the sketches shows considerable variation, as they were partly composed by the artists themselves and partly adapted from printed sources. Ah effort has been made, however, in this second edition to harmonize them without disturbing the individual note so often contributed by the writers, producing a more satisfactory result than would uni form notices in condensed, encyclopedic style.

The titles of the medals have been corrected and expanded, and dates, processes, metals or materials, sizes, etc., added where possible. The new volume is equipped with an introduction, and also an index of artists and their works. As large a number of artists as possible have been represented in the illustrations. Many of the exhibitors f urnished supplementary photographs of their works, which have been utilized to the extent com patible with the size of a single volume.

This new edition will, it is hoped, fill a need felt by the lovers of the medallic art. It is an attempt to supply in English a sort of text-book from which to begin the study of the modern or, more accurately, the contem poraneous medal. This catalogue of medals, with its illustrations, and the brief outline of the history of the medallic art given in the introduction, are designed to place the reader in a position to pursue the study of medallic art in the numerous foreign works dealing with the subject. The stress laid by modern critics and collectors upon the purely artistic quality of the medal is a comparatively recent viewpoint. Furthermore, the element of technique has played no minor role in the evolution of style; hence, a clear understanding of the technical processes should conduce to an appreciation of the conceptions of the artistic nature and function of the medal held by present-day artists of different temperaments and nationalities.

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