Elie Nadelman ( 1882-1946 )
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Girl with Poodle - mid-1930s Painted papier-mache 8 x 6 ¾ x 4 ½ inches
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Provenance:
The sculptor
Estate of the artist, Riverdale, New York
Private collection, New York
Exhibited:
Elie Nadelman: The Late Work, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York, September 7 - October 2, 1999.
Recorded:
Elie Nadelman: The Late Work, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York, 1999, color illus. pl. 13.
Elie Nadelman is well known as one of the leading American sculptors of the twentieth century. Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1882, Nadelman attended the Warsaw School of Fine Arts briefly before volunteering to serve in the Russian Imperial Army between 1900 and 1901. He returned to Warsaw before leaving for Munich for a short stay and then moving to Paris where he lived between 1904 and 1914.
It was in Paris that Nadelman achieved success as an artist. An exhibition in the spring of 1909 at the Galerie Druet, a leading dealer of modern art, was well received by critics and collectors alike. Nadelman immigrated to the United States in 1914, settling in New York and soon becoming an active member of New York's social and artistic circles. His gaze turned to contemporary society and he began making witty depictions of his fellow art world habitués, entertainers, and performers.
He and his wife lost their fortune in the stock market crash of 1929 and the Depression. Forced to give up his carriage house-turned-studio and work out of the kitchen, Nadelman reduced the scale of his sculptures accordingly. Around this time Nadelman started depicting circus performers, creating small-scale works in marble, papier-mâché, and painted glazed ceramic.
Girl with Poodle, mid-1930s-1946, is comprised of pleasingly smooth curves; as is typical of Nadelman's figures, this piece lacks any sharp angles. The forms of the woman and the dog meld together, further emphasizing the fluidity of his lines. Nadelman is unconcerned with specific details; the woman's face lacks any distinguishing characteristics. The only hints to her livelihood as a circus performer are in the colorful, crosshatched leotard that she dons and the poodle in her lap.
Nadelman had a great interest in the surface of his sculptures, thus he devised a unique papier-mâché composite of boiled paper pulp, resins and glue. He cast this composite material in molds in order to duplicate the forms.
