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Lot Essay
We are grateful to Virginia Budny, author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné sponsored by the Lachaise Foundation, for her assistance in preparing the catalogue entry for this work.
There are nine bronze casts of Gaston Lachaise’s Standing Woman [LF 92]. The only example cast during the artist’s lifetime is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. A second bronze was issued by Lachaise’s widow and sold in 1957 to The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York. In 1968, a further edition of six, including the present example, was authorized by the Lachaise Foundation as the representative of the artist’s estate. Other casts are in the collections of the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, University of California, Los Angeles (cast in 1980); Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (cast in 1980); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (cast in 1981), and the Lachaise Foundation, New York (cast in 2000, on loan to the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon). Finally, an artist’s proof was issued by the Lachaise Foundation in 2007 (on loan to the Tuileries Garden, Paris, France). All but the first cast were produced by the Modern Art Foundry, New York. In addition, a plaster cast of the entire statue is owned by the Lachaise Foundation, and a plaster cast of the torso and arms—likely a by-product of the initial bronze-casting process—has been part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art since 1934.
Already considered in the early 1920s to be one of America’s best living sculptors by some cognoscenti, Gaston Lachaise had burst onto the New York art scene in 1918 with his first solo exhibition at the Bourgeois Galleries, in which a plaster cast of his larger-than-life Standing Woman (Elevation) [LF 55], a statue of a voluptuous nude raised up on her toes, was first presented. That show was followed by a series of exhibitions at prominent New York galleries, culminating in 1935 with the first retrospective accorded to a living sculptor by the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Lachaise’s sculptures exhibit his profound understanding of sculptural principles and a mastery of technique far beyond the abilities of many American sculptors who were his contemporaries. They realize his passionate desire to express his own personal vision of America’s vast power and enormous capacity for growth in his art. Often considered challenging because of the unusually robust figure types that he created, and the intensity of their impact on the viewer, his works have remained both compelling and meaningful up to the present time. Standing Woman [LF 92], one of his most significant achievements, has become an icon of American art, and in the years since the first bronze copy was produced in the early 1930s, examples of the work have traveled widely both within and outside the United States.
It was in 1928, when, buoyed by the success of an acclaimed exhibition of his sculpture at the prestigious Brummer Gallery, New York, in which two heroic statues—Standing Woman (Elevation) [LF 55] (1912-15, bronze) and Floating Woman [LF 63] (1927, plaster)—dramatically faced each other across the room, Lachaise began work on full-scale models for two more heroic nude statues envisioned by him as complementary archetypes. These were to become Standing Woman [LF 92] (1928-30) and Man [LF 85] (1928-34). At an early stage of his work on these new models, he described his intentions in a July 24, 1928 letter to his friend and dealer Alfred Stieglitz: “I am working at present at a large standing figure, a woman, on earth this time—vigorously and gloriously for all her share of what is good… I will… start the figure of ‘Man’ also on earth, for all that is gloriously good to live and go through” (G. Lachaise, cited in V. Budny, “Provocative Extremes: Gaston Lachaise’s Women,” Sculpture Review, vol. 63, no. 2, Summer 2014, pp. 12, 16-19n.6).
Like Standing Woman (Elevation) and Floating Woman, the present model was inspired by his supremely self-confident American wife, Isabel Dutaud Nagle. Born in Paris, France, he had met Isabel there when he was about twenty years of age and followed her to her native America in 1906, becoming a naturalized citizen and marrying her in 1917. He viewed Isabel not only as the epitome of the modern “American Woman” but also as an exemplar of the phenomenal energy that he felt all around him in his adopted country.
Standing Woman thus appears to have been conceived by Lachaise as a direct response to the uplifted, inspired “Woman” on tiptoes and her later celestial manifestation in the two statues splendidly displayed under the Brummer Gallery’s skylight. With the present version having a coequal in Man, Lachaise also made a decision to bring his paragon firmly down to earth and into a dynamic alliance with her male counterpart. Further, in Standing Woman, he dramatically contrasts the imposing nude’s narrow waist with her expansive breasts and hips even more insistently than in those earlier works, so that—like a tightly compressed balloon—she seems to contain a potentially explosive force indicative of immense personal strength.
Both Standing Woman and Man were cast in plaster in 1930, and Man was included at Lachaise’s insistence in a group show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in December 1930. Money was finally forthcoming in early October
1932 to cast Standing Woman in bronze, and the plaster was shipped off to a first-rate foundry in Munich (Preissmann, Bauer u. Co.) by the 19th of the same month. The bronze cast was eventually returned to Lachaise in April 1934, and he completed the chasing process in the following month. The cast was featured in his retrospective in early 1935 at the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1948 it was purchased for that museum, where it stood as a world-renowned feature of the museum’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden for many years, until the garden was closed in 2002. Man in plaster, somewhat reworked, was also included in Lachaise’s 1935 retrospective. A bronze version of Man, cast osthumously in 1938, is now owned by the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.
There are nine bronze casts of Gaston Lachaise’s Standing Woman [LF 92]. The only example cast during the artist’s lifetime is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York. A second bronze was issued by Lachaise’s widow and sold in 1957 to The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, New York. In 1968, a further edition of six, including the present example, was authorized by the Lachaise Foundation as the representative of the artist’s estate. Other casts are in the collections of the Franklin D. Murphy Sculpture Garden, University of California, Los Angeles (cast in 1980); Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (cast in 1980); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. (cast in 1981), and the Lachaise Foundation, New York (cast in 2000, on loan to the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon). Finally, an artist’s proof was issued by the Lachaise Foundation in 2007 (on loan to the Tuileries Garden, Paris, France). All but the first cast were produced by the Modern Art Foundry, New York. In addition, a plaster cast of the entire statue is owned by the Lachaise Foundation, and a plaster cast of the torso and arms—likely a by-product of the initial bronze-casting process—has been part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art since 1934.
Already considered in the early 1920s to be one of America’s best living sculptors by some cognoscenti, Gaston Lachaise had burst onto the New York art scene in 1918 with his first solo exhibition at the Bourgeois Galleries, in which a plaster cast of his larger-than-life Standing Woman (Elevation) [LF 55], a statue of a voluptuous nude raised up on her toes, was first presented. That show was followed by a series of exhibitions at prominent New York galleries, culminating in 1935 with the first retrospective accorded to a living sculptor by the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
Lachaise’s sculptures exhibit his profound understanding of sculptural principles and a mastery of technique far beyond the abilities of many American sculptors who were his contemporaries. They realize his passionate desire to express his own personal vision of America’s vast power and enormous capacity for growth in his art. Often considered challenging because of the unusually robust figure types that he created, and the intensity of their impact on the viewer, his works have remained both compelling and meaningful up to the present time. Standing Woman [LF 92], one of his most significant achievements, has become an icon of American art, and in the years since the first bronze copy was produced in the early 1930s, examples of the work have traveled widely both within and outside the United States.
It was in 1928, when, buoyed by the success of an acclaimed exhibition of his sculpture at the prestigious Brummer Gallery, New York, in which two heroic statues—Standing Woman (Elevation) [LF 55] (1912-15, bronze) and Floating Woman [LF 63] (1927, plaster)—dramatically faced each other across the room, Lachaise began work on full-scale models for two more heroic nude statues envisioned by him as complementary archetypes. These were to become Standing Woman [LF 92] (1928-30) and Man [LF 85] (1928-34). At an early stage of his work on these new models, he described his intentions in a July 24, 1928 letter to his friend and dealer Alfred Stieglitz: “I am working at present at a large standing figure, a woman, on earth this time—vigorously and gloriously for all her share of what is good… I will… start the figure of ‘Man’ also on earth, for all that is gloriously good to live and go through” (G. Lachaise, cited in V. Budny, “Provocative Extremes: Gaston Lachaise’s Women,” Sculpture Review, vol. 63, no. 2, Summer 2014, pp. 12, 16-19n.6).
Like Standing Woman (Elevation) and Floating Woman, the present model was inspired by his supremely self-confident American wife, Isabel Dutaud Nagle. Born in Paris, France, he had met Isabel there when he was about twenty years of age and followed her to her native America in 1906, becoming a naturalized citizen and marrying her in 1917. He viewed Isabel not only as the epitome of the modern “American Woman” but also as an exemplar of the phenomenal energy that he felt all around him in his adopted country.
Standing Woman thus appears to have been conceived by Lachaise as a direct response to the uplifted, inspired “Woman” on tiptoes and her later celestial manifestation in the two statues splendidly displayed under the Brummer Gallery’s skylight. With the present version having a coequal in Man, Lachaise also made a decision to bring his paragon firmly down to earth and into a dynamic alliance with her male counterpart. Further, in Standing Woman, he dramatically contrasts the imposing nude’s narrow waist with her expansive breasts and hips even more insistently than in those earlier works, so that—like a tightly compressed balloon—she seems to contain a potentially explosive force indicative of immense personal strength.
Both Standing Woman and Man were cast in plaster in 1930, and Man was included at Lachaise’s insistence in a group show at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, in December 1930. Money was finally forthcoming in early October
1932 to cast Standing Woman in bronze, and the plaster was shipped off to a first-rate foundry in Munich (Preissmann, Bauer u. Co.) by the 19th of the same month. The bronze cast was eventually returned to Lachaise in April 1934, and he completed the chasing process in the following month. The cast was featured in his retrospective in early 1935 at the Museum of Modern Art, and in 1948 it was purchased for that museum, where it stood as a world-renowned feature of the museum’s Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden for many years, until the garden was closed in 2002. Man in plaster, somewhat reworked, was also included in Lachaise’s 1935 retrospective. A bronze version of Man, cast osthumously in 1938, is now owned by the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.