McNay Art Museum
San Antonio, TX
210-824-5368
http://www.mcnayart.org/
Elie Nadelman: Classical
Folk
June 12-August 19, 2001
To interpret the charm of life,
often at its most fragile and shifting -- by inflexible and solid physical
laws -- here is the definition of art.
- Elie Nadelman
"Elie Nadelman: Classical Folk,"
the first major survey of the artist in over two decades, opens to the public
on June 12, 2001, at The Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, where
it remains on view through August 19, 2001. The exhibition will be presented
at the Frick Art and Historical Center Pittsburgh,
from September 21 to December 20, 2001. Including 46 figural sculptures
and 22 drawings, the exhibition highlights the work of Elie Nadelman (1882-1946)
during his years in the United States (1914-1946), a mature phase during
which he arrived at his distinct synthesis of 
traditional and popular sources. (left: Acrobat,
1916, bronze, 15 3/4 x 5 1/2 x 10 1/4 inches, Estate of Elie Nadelman, Photo
courtesy of AFA)
Guest curator Suzanne Ramljak, editor of Metalsmith magazine and formerly an AFA curator, has selected sculptures in various
mediums, including bronze, marble, wood, ceramic, gulvano-plastique,
papier-mâché, and plaster, with several sculptures represented
in more than one medium and scale to demonstrate Nadelman's artistic process
and facility in transforming subjects through varied formal treatments.
In addition, a selection of drawings underscores his schematic handling
of the human body. The works will be arranged in subject groupings, such
as dancers or figure busts, allowing comparisons of similar works. (right:
Standing Girl (Hostess), ca. 1918-20, cherry wood, 32 1/2 x 12 x
13 1/2 inches, Estate of Elie Nadelman, Photo courtesy of AFA)
Born
in Poland in 1882, Nadelman lived in various cities throughout Europe, including
ten years in Paris, until settling in the United States in 1914, where he
remained until his death in 1946. It was during his years in America that
Nadelman developed his unique style, in which he applied the aesthetic formulae
he developed in Europe to subjects drawn from American society and popular
culture. This balancing act that Nadelman performed between the classical
and the contemporary lies at the root of his art. Avis Berman, writer and
art historian, describes the hybrid nature of Nadelman's work in the accompanying
exhibition catalogue, writing: "He dignified and monumentalized everyday
life by drawing on models from the classical past and then energized it
by encorporating motion and the primal, uninflated forms of folklore, such
as utilitarian crafts and popular theatre, for a new visual forthrightness
in sculpture." (left: Female Dancer, c. 1920, bronze,
32 1/2 x 17 x 7 1/2 inches, Estate of Elie Nadelman, Photo courtesy of AFA)
Although friends with many avant-garde artists of the day,
including Marcel Duchamp, Nadelman worked against the 
modernist narrative, remaining dedicated to classicism,
as seen in the marble bust Woman's Head (Goddess) (1916). However,
Nadelman was able to complement the structural principles of antiquity with
his interpretation of modern life, as evident in Man in the Open Air
(1915), a work retaining the contour and silhouette typically found in Greek
sculpture but updated by the addition of a contemporary bowler hat and bow
tie.
During his years in the United States, Nadelman developed
a deep appreciation for American folk art. In 1917, he began carving regularly
in wood and applying gesso to suggest flesh and clothing, giving the work
a directness and immediacy reminiscent of American folk sculpture, as in
Orchestra Leader (c. 1919). Nadelman also paid a subtle tribute to
the skills of European craftsmen with his use of a "joined wood"
technique, whereby the figures were not carved from a solid piece of wood
but, rather, assembled from segments of wood glued together, and then carved.
(right: Bust of a Woman, 1924, painted bronze, 24 1/2 x 16
1/2 x11 icnhes, Estate of Elie Nadelman, Photo courtesy of AFA)
Nadelman
often chose subjects that allowed him to capture an expressive moment in
time and demonstrate his belief in the power of form. His appreciation of
popular art and entertainment led him to concentrate on dancers and performers
as preferred subjects for his art. Dancer (High Kicker) (c. 1918-19)
and Female Dancer (c. 1920) are both enlivened figures caught in
motion, yet they maintain a grace and composure achieved through curves
and convex forms, indicative of Nadelman's commitment to an art of formal
harmony. (left: Seated Woman, 1924, galvano-plastique, 46
1/2 x 20 x 24 inches, Estate of Elie Nadelman, Photo courtesy of AFA)
During the last decade of his life Nadelman produced hundreds
of plaster figurines, presumably for broad distribution. These figurines,
little known and rarely seen, draw comparison to terra-cotta Tanagran figurines
from the Hellenistic period in Greece, with their combination of classical
motifs and everyday poses and fashions. Their doll-like, cherubic quality
and demonstrative gestures illustrate Nadelman's refusal to rigidly separate
high from low art.
Ramljak states, "The exhibition will reveal Nadelman's
synthesis of diverse sources -- past and present, traditional and modern,
high and low, classical and folk -- and his ability to endow his sculptures
with an expressive life, at once accessible and refined."
A
fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition. It features a major
essay by Suzanne Ramljak on Nadelman's sculptural achievement in the context
of the classical figure tradition. Also included is an essay by Avis Berman
examining Nadelman's involvement with folk art and popular culture and his
establishment of the first museum of folk art in America in 1926; an essay
by Valerie Fletcher,
Curator of Sculpture, Hirshhorn Museum
and Sculpture Garden, detailing Nadelman's sculptural materials and
processes; an essay by writer and curator Klaus Kertess discussing Nadelman's
late plasters as precursors to the aesthetic transformations in figurative
sculpture that followed World War II; and a detailed illustrated chronology
of the artist's biography and artistic milieus by the artist's granddaughter,
Cynthia Nadelman. Elie Nadelman: Classical Folk is published by the
American Federation of Arts. (left: Group of Four Figures,
ca. 1936-45, plaster, 5 1/2 - 9 1/4 inches high, each, Estate of Elie Nadelman,
Photo courtesy of AFA)
The exhibition is organized by the American
Federation of Arts. It is made possible in part by The
Henry Luce Foundation, Inc. The exhibition is a project of ART ACCESS
II, a program of the AFA with major support from the Lila
Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund. Founded by an act of Congress in 1909,
the AFA is the nation' a oldest and most comprehensive non-profit art museum
service organization. The AFA provides its more than 550 member institutions
with traveling art exhibitions and educational, professional, and technical
support programs developed in collaboration with the museum community. Through
these programs, the AFA seeks to strengthen the ability of museums to enrich
the public's experience and understanding of art.
Read more articles and essays concerning this institutional
source by visiting the sub-index page for the McNay
Art Museum in Resource Library.
and biographical information on artists cited above in
America's Distinguished Artists,
a national registry of historic artists.
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"Elie Nadelman: Classical Folk,"
the first major survey of the artist in over two decades, opens to the public
on June 12, 2001, at The Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, where
it remains on view through August 19, 2001. The exhibition will be presented
at the Frick Art and Historical Center Pittsburgh,
from September 21 to December 20, 2001. Including 46 figural sculptures
and 22 drawings, the exhibition highlights the work of Elie Nadelman (1882-1946)
during his years in the United States (1914-1946), a mature phase during
which he arrived at his distinct synthesis of 
traditional and popular sources. (left: Acrobat,
1916, bronze, 15 3/4 x 5 1/2 x 10 1/4 inches, Estate of Elie Nadelman, Photo
courtesy of AFA)
