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:
Felix Landau Gallery, Los Angeles, California.
Acquired directly from the above.
Private Collection, New York.
Thence by descent in the family to the present owner.

Lot Essay:
This drawing of a nude woman with greatly exaggerated anatomical features and an elaborate coiffure compares, for example, to drawings by Lachaise on similarly sized sheets of paper: Walkiing Woman, Profile, Museum of Modern Art, New York, object no 11.1935; and Walking Figure (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, accession no. 1988.267.1). The nude in the present drawing is more carefully rendered than the other two, and was likely executed before them. Yet, all three exhibit Lachaise’s late style in which he often took great liberties with the bodies of his ideal figures, as a means to convey extraordinary power.