Female Head
Elie NADELMAN
(American, born Poland, 1882-1946)
Female Head
Date1909-1910
Mediumwhite marble
Dimensionsobject: 13 1/4 x 12 1/2 x 8 in. (33.7 x 31.8 x 20.3 cm)
object with base: 18 x 12 1/2 x 8 in. (45.7 x 31.8 x 20.3 cm)
base: 4 3/4 x 7 1/8 in. (12.1 x 18.1 cm)
ClassificationSCULPTURE
Credit LineSBMA, Museum Purchase, with funds provided by the Austin Fund in honor of Wright S. Ludington, the Carol L. Valentine Art Acquisition Fund, the Mary and Leigh Block Fund, and the General Art Acquisition Fund
Object number1999.47
Subject(s)
- women
- heads and faces
Collection
- 20th century American
- American
Sub-Collection(s)
- American
- Polish
On View
Not on viewCollections
Label TextBorn and raised in Poland, Nadelman was a central figure in French early modernism and its translation in America, where he fled after the outbreak of World War II. Worldly and gifted, he circulated easily in the art world of New York and was championed by Alfred Stieglitz, who organized Nadelman’s first exhibition at the legendary Gallery 291 on Fifth Avenue. This elegant sculpture typifies the artist’s work during the Paris period, when he delighted in crafting refined surfaces with gently flowing curves, punctuated by rhythmic incised lines. Like the earlier French symbolist, Puvis de Chavannes, Nadelman’s ambition was to invent an updated classicism based upon Hellenistic prototypes and simplified into his own brand of geometric abstraction.
