Though he often worked in both marble and bronze, Jean Arp (1886–1966) infused all his efforts with a lightness not to be mistaken for mere humor. His was a buoyant, amused, and somewhat wry approach to making, which resulted from an essentially comic view of life; it is this lightness, I suspect, that allows us to appreciate Arp’s work beyond the local contexts of Dada, Surrealism, and Abstraction-Création. “Line and Form” at Mitchell-Innes & Nash— October 12 to November 18—brought together thirty-two works, which found the artist flitting from painting and collage to sculpture, drawing, even embroidery. Arp often favored the juxtaposition of hard edges with round and curving lines. His white marble sculpture Miroir Polyvalent (1963) looks from one side like the smooth, ovoid back of a head; on another side, the artist cut facets into the marble, leaving the broad planes of a cubist face. In fact, the marble ...

This article is available to subscribers and for individual purchase