HARRIET WHITNEY FRISHMUTH (American 1880-1980)

Description

HARRIET WHITNEY FRISHMUTH (American 1880-1980)
Pas de Deux: The Dancers, 1921
Bronze on black marble base
16.25in. x 27.5in.
Stamped left: Harriet W. Frishmuth 1921
Stamped on back: Gorham Co Founders/ QBO5
This design will be included in Leah Rosenblatt's forthcoming catalogue raisonné on the artist
Provenance: From the Charles Aronson Estate

Like many sculptors of her generation, Harriet Frishmuth was inspired during the early 1920s by legendary personalities and romantic themes of modern and classical dance. Pas de Deux: The Dancers, 1921 was posed by professional dancers Barté and Desha Delteil and was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1923.

Born in Philadelphia into an upper-middle class family, at the age of 18, Harriett Whitney Frishmuth began sculpting classes in Paris a the Académie Rodin. Twice a week, renowned sculptor Auguste Rodin visited the class and gave critiques, often singling out Frishmuth's work with praise. She later attended the Académie Colarossi, where she continued her studies under Henri Desiré Gauquié and Jean Antoine Injalbert. In 1903 Frishmuth made her debut at the Paris Salon with a portrait bust of a woman. After she completed her studies she moved to Berlin and two years later returned to New York City, where she took classes at the Art Students League under Gutzon Borglum and Hermon Atkins MacNeill. To further her knowledge of human anatomy, Frishmuth enrolled in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University for two years in dissection. Finally, in 1908, Frishmuth opened her first studio on Park Avenue where she produced sculpture portraits and received her first commission in 1910. In 1912 she had her first important exhibition held at Gorham Galleries in New York City, and in 1915 her work was included in the Panama- Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.

The decade of the 1920s was Frishmuth's most important and prolific period. It was during this time that her style developed into her celebrated subject, the nude female form in motion. She often used dancers for models, as they were able to hold difficult poses for long periods of time. Her favorite was the Yugoslav dancer Desha Delteil, whom Frishmuth used as the basis for over 90 percent of her works. Many of Frishmuth's sculptures from the 1920s share common characteristics which she invariably used in her sculpture throughout the next 20 years of her career: raised heels, ankles and knees demurely pressed together, shoulders delicately hunched, elbows pulled to the body, and the hands bent back with fingers splayed.

Frishmuth had a one-woman show at the Grand Central Galleries in 1928. That same year she was invited to exhibit several bronzes with The Philadelphia Ten, a group of women artists whom Frishmuth officially joined as a member in 1939. She was elected Academician of the National Academy of Design in 1929. Her artwork is housed in public collections, including the Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri; National Academy of Design Museum, New York; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; and the Dayton Art Institute, Ohio.

Condition: original patina, fine line of demarcation around feet where figures attach to the base, small repair to man's chest.

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