Gaston Lachaise

We wish to thank Virginia Budny, author of the forthcoming Catalogue Raisonné of Lachaise’s work (sponsored by the Lachaise Foundation), for her assistance in preparing the catalogue entry for the present work.

Provenance:
Lachaise Foundation, Boston, Massachusetts.
Robert Schoelkopf Gallery, New York, New York.
Acquired directly from the above on May 1, 1986.
Private Collection, New York.
Thence by descent in the family to the present owner.

Exhibition History:
Worthington Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, July 17, 1985–April 29, 1986.

Literature:
Donald Bannard Goodall, “Gaston Lachaise, Sculptor,” 2 Vols., Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1969, Vol. 2, p. 436 (the plaster model referenced).

Lot Essay:
Gaston Lachaise’s model for Standing Woman [LF 136] was evidently one of the last sculptures that he created before his unexpected death in October 1935, and he may have intended to continue to develop the work. The body of the woman in the statuette very closely compares to that of the nude in the second state of Lachaise’s Garden Figure ([LF 136], to be offered in Freeman's Hindman sale of American Art on December 8, 2024), which he began sometime after his retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in January-March of 1935 but did not complete. Whereas the serene woman in Garden Figure evokes the fruitfulness and abundance of Summer, the woman in Standing Woman, whose arms are tightly folded across her chest, as though to keep warm, evokes the frigid cold of Winter.

The model of Standing Woman was not cast in bronze until the Lachaise Foundation (which was established in 1963 and oversees the Lachaise Estate) issued an edition of 12 numbered bronze casts and ordered the present example to be made by the Modern Art Foundry, New York City. No other casts have been produced. The plaster model, used to make the bronze cast, has been damaged, and at present only the torso remains. The Lachaise Foundation has given the number LF 136 to the work.