ARTIST OVERVIEW

Elie Nadelman's (1882–1946) explorations of form and volume created a new 20th-century American sculptural aesthetic that combined elements of the past while looking toward the future. Working in a variety of mediums—bronze, plaster, terracotta, marble, papier-mâché, and wood—Nadelman sought to distill the essence of human form and to "subvert the distinctions between high and low culture and the gulf between historical and contemporary styles."¹ Nadelman was a pathbreaking innovator of form and content, profoundly influencing the work of artists as diverse as George Bellows, Gaston Lachaise, Arthur B. Davies, Constantin Brancusi, Amedeo Modigliani, and Picasso. Moreover, Nadelman's experimental techniques and materials, and catholic tastes introduced an explosive mix of cultural influences and formal elements into 20th century American art.

Born in Warsaw, Poland in 1882, Nadelman moved to Paris in 1903. Within a decade, he posted two groundbreaking solo shows of classical heads at Galerie Druet, which secured his place in the Parisian avant-garde, alongside contemporaries Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. (Nadelman was also embraced by the collectors Leo and Gertrude Stein, poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and writer Andre Gide.) In 1914 Nadelman sought asylum in the U.S., married a wealthy New York widow, and enjoyed enormous public and critical acclaim for the next two decades. The Depression ended Nadelman's life of comfort, but he continued working, experimenting with less costly materials such as "galvano-plastique" in order to continue casting his sculpture.

Nadelman's sources range from Hellenistic sculpture, art nouveau, and neoclassicism to the sculpture of Rodin, the paintings of Seurat, and the naive simplicity of form in American folk art (of which he was an early and preeminent collector). Other influences included the Lascaux cave paintings, popular art, movies, jazz, and vaudeville. An avowed modernist, Nadelman claimed that, in his work, formal considerations were paramount, stating in a 1910 artist's statement: "I employ no other line than the curve, which possesses freshness and force. I compose the curves so as to bring them in accord in opposition to each other."

Nevertheless, the whimsical genre figures executed after his immigration to America evince a gentle humor that both celebrates and mocks American culture and social mores. With their distillation of form and simplified volumes, Nadelman's sculptures are masterpieces of modernist achievement.

Numerous retrospectives of Nadelman's work have been held since his death in 1946, with the first, organized by Lincoln Kirstein, in 1948 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In 1975, New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art mounted a national traveling retrospective and in 2003, the Whitney presented the largest exhibition and monograph on Nadelman's work to date, "Elie Nadelman: Sculptor of Modern Life."

^1. Barbara Haskell, Elie Nadelman: Sculptor of Modern Life (New York City: Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City, 2003).