Harriet Whitney Frishmuth

(1880-1980)

The Dancers (Pas de deux, Tarantella) 16 1/2 in. (41.9 cm.) high, on a 1 in. (2.5 cm.) high black marble base

Footnotes

Provenance
Private collection, Pasadena, California.
Estate of the above.
Private collection, Upland, California, by descent from the above.
Sale, John Moran Auctioneers, Monrovia, California, February 17, 2004, lot 28, sold by the above.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Literature
"286 Exhibits Shown by Women Artists," American Art News, April 8, 1922, vol. XX, no. 26, p. 7, another example listed.
"Harriet Frishmuth's 'The Dancers' Stolen from the Milch Galleries," American Art News, May 27, 1922, vol. XX, no. 33, p. 2, another example listed.
M.C. Smith, "The Art of Harriet Frishmuth," The American Magazine of Art, September 1925, vol. 16, no. 9, pp. 475, another example illustrated.
The Gorham Company, Bronze Division, Famous Small Bronzes: A Representative Exhibit Selected from the Works of Noted Contemporary Sculptors, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1928, p. 73, another example illustrated. (as Dancing Group)
C.N. Aronson, Sculptured Hyacinths, New York, 1973, pp. 122-23, 208, another example illustrated.
C.S. Rubinstein, American Women Sculptors: A History of Women Working in Three Dimensions, Boston, Massachusetts, 1990, p. 155, another example listed.
J.G. Dreiss, "The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth and New York Dance," Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 1994, Vol. XXIX, pp. 33, 38-39, figs. 2, 5, other examples illustrated.
K. Ahrens, Harriet Whitney Frishmuth: Small Bronzes, exhibition catalogue, Athens, Ohio, 2001, p. 5, 70, no. 9, other examples illustrated.
J. Conner, L.R. Lehmbeck, T. Tolles, F.L. Hohmann III, Captured Motion, The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth: A Catalogue of Works, New York, 2006, pp. 12, 14, 35, 79-80, 84, 102, 107-10, 158-59, 241, 277, 293, no. 1921:4, another example illustrated.

There are 58 known versions of The Dancers (Pas de deux, Tarantella) that were produced, 57 of which, including the present work, were cast by the Gorham Manufacturing Company, Bronze Division.

Harriet Whitney Frishmuth's The Dancers (Pad de deux, Tarantella) is an impressive tour de force in Frishmuth's oeuvre that brings together a male figure and the familiar female figure of her favorite model, Desha Delteil (née Podgorska, 1900-1980). Both Desha and the male model, Léon Barté, posed for Frishmuth separately in the nude and substituted their partner's hand for a rope. She united both figures in a series of three sculptures: the present work modeled in 1921, Fantaisie modeled in 1922, Rhapsody modeled in 1925. Barté was a dancer and actor known for his roles in Louis Lemarchand's play La folie du jour in 1927 and Gene Markey's play Syncopation in 1929. After Frishmuth finished sculpting the bodies to her liking, she then had both dancers pose clothed with their hands joined so Frishmuth could accurately sculpt their hands linked together. The resulting sculpture is both a tantalizing and elegant triumph for the way in which Frishmuth masterfully balances the tension between both figures. Because of the intricate design of the sculpture made it exorbitantly expensive to cast The Dancers (Pad de deux, Tarantella), Frishmuth limited the edition to 58 works.