Philip Rawson, a distinguished academic and author, practiced as a sculptor all of his life. Sculpture, his final book, completes the trilogy begun with his classic works, Drawing and Ceramics. As in those earlier volumes, Rawson provides a clear, factual description of the underlying principles and structural techniques of the art. Although Rawson discusses sculptures from many places and periods—including Africa, Asia, Greece, Medieval and Renaissance Europe, and twentieth-century Europe and America—Sculpture is not a history as such. Rather, it is an original analysis of sculpture as a fundamental and integral form of human "language" capable of conveying a variety of different insights, offering a wealth of cultural and symbolic meaning.

In the course of this analysis, Sculpture explores the full range of expressive techniques available to the sculptor today. Rawson's intent is to reveal possible modes of sculptural thought for practitioners and to enable the nonexpert to better understand and appreciate the emotional and intellectual content of any work.