Beginning this week, Madisonians will be the first in the country to see a new exhibition of the work of sculptor George Segal that focuses specifically on his urban sculpture and exploration of everyday city life.

"George Segal: Street Scenes" opens officially on Saturday, Sept. 13, at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art and runs through Dec. 28. From there, it heads to Dallas, Kansas City, Mo., and West Palm Beach, Fla.

"No one before has really done a show with a thematic perspective on Segal's work," said Jane Simon, curator of exhibitions at MMoCA, who put together the show with director Steven Fleischman. "I think this really adds not only to the scholarship, but also to the access individuals will have to the work. It's giving you a lens through which you can explore the work."

Segal was born and raised in New York City, the site of much of his artistic inspiration. He began his career as a painter, but in the 1960s he turned to sculpting life-size figures out of plaster and pairing them with domestic and urban everyday objects like chairs, benches and window frames.

The sculptures "use a very not simple, but more a down-to-earth visual language that I think a lot of people can relate to," Simon said. "They're basically about human emotions and human expressions."

One of Segal's most famous pieces, "Depression Bread Line," was commissioned as part of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in 1991. It depicts five men waiting in a line; the fourth figure is modeled after Segal himself. With support from several sponsors, MMoCA commissioned a bronze cast of the sculpture that will likely find a permanent home in the museum after the exhibit has finished touring.

"Segal is an artist that I think has appeal everywhere he's shown," Fleischman said. "People relate to the human figure. People appreciate things with a narrative cadence. (They're) interested in artworks that tell a story."

Fleischman first encountered Segal's work when he lived in Minneapolis, and he saw a piece called "Diner" at the Walker Art Center as part of the permanent collection. That work will be on display as part of the MMoCA's exhibit.

"There was hardly a day that went by that I didn't go to the gallery where it was installed," Fleischman said. "When you live with a work on a day-to-day basis, your feelings about it slowly evolve. You notice different things about the work. Different things catch your attention on different visits and you really develop a close relationship with the object."

Simon pointed out Segal's accessibility as a major draw for Madison audiences.

"It's interesting that somebody would deliberately choose a visual language that you didn't have to know anything about the history of art to understand," she said. "I think that's what he was trying to do. He was interested and well-versed in abstraction but he deliberately chose something that was a more pervasive language for viewers to experience."

"George Segal: Street Scenes" includes 16 sculpted pieces created from the 1960s to the late 1990s, all of which focus on an urban environment and the reality of urban decay.

"It's a very exciting project," Fleischman said. "He's one of the great artists of the 20th century; he's extremely influential and he's collected all over the world. To be able to organize a major project of his work is an honor for the museum."

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IF YOU GO

An opening reception for "George Segal: Street Scenes" will be held from 6:30-9 p.m. Friday, Sept. 12, at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, 227 State St. An art talk at 7 p.m. will include Stephen Fleischman, director of MMoCA; Martin Friedman, author and director emeritus of the Waler Art Center in Minneapolis' and Jane Simon, MMoCA curator of exhibitions.