Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
5905 Wilshire Blvd.
L.A.,CA

A new addition to the museum's collection, the rare, life-sized plaster sculpture of the Enlightenment writer and philosopher, Voltaire, is one of eight versions known to exist.



Price: $5-$9; 17 and younger, free
Box office:

Box Office: 323-857-6000
TDD: 323-857-0098
The museum has an exceptional addition to its collection, Jean-Antoine Houdon's "Seated Voltaire," philosopher and patriarch of the young French republic. The great liberal writer, who argued that culture and commerce rank on a par with politics and war in concepts of history, is made the centerpiece for scores of sculptures that fill the artist's studio. A hugely popular work of art in its own right, the "Seated Voltaire" here occupies the metaphoric pinnacle of Houdon's prodigious output. As well it might. And, though it's nowhere near as ethereally elegant as two other versions in smooth white marble, one in Paris and the other in St. Petersburg. But the abraded plaster exudes a rumpled liveliness that makes the figure unusually approachable. (C.K.)