Name: GASTON LACHAISE (AMERICAN/FRENCH, 1882–1935)
Brand: Torso
Price: 6000.00 USD
Availability: SoldOut

GASTON LACHAISE (AMERICAN/FRENCH, 1882–1935)
Torso
signed, dated, stamped and numbered 'G. LACHAISE / G 1933 / LACHAISE ESTATE / 1/11 / M CAST 91' (along the base)
bronze with dark brown patina
13¹⁄₄ in. (33.8 cm.) high
Cast in 1991. This work is number one from an edition of eleven.

Acquired from Slander O'Reilly Gallery, New York, by the present owner.

Museum of Modern Art, Gaston Lachaise: Retrospective Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1935, p. 28, no. 56, another example illustrated (as Woman, 1933).
D. Goodall, Gaston Lachaise: Sculptor, Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969, vol. I, pp. 576, 661, note 20; vol. II, pp. 448, 309-12, plates CXXXVI-A, B, another example illustrated (as Torso, Arms Akimbo, 1933).
S. Hunter, Lachaise, New York, 1993, pp. iv, 184-187, 244, another example illustrated (as Torso, 1933).

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Lot Essay

Woman (LF 147) was developed by Gaston Lachaise from a full-length dancing nude begun in 1929 and subsequently truncated at the knees to emphasize the figure's torso. The plaster model was completed by 1933, the year in which it was copyrighted.

The first bronze cast was listed in the catalogue for the artist's retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1935, but not shown. It first appeared in 1937 in a retrospective exhibition organized by Lachaise's widow, Isabel, for the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. That cast and another early cast are presently unlocated. Two numbered Estate casts have been made by the Modern Art Foundry for the Lachaise Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts, the first and present bronze, in 1991, and the second, in 1992. The plaster model is owned by the Lachaise Foundation.

We are grateful to Virginia Budny for preparing the catalogue entry for this work.