2301: Gaston Lachaise American, 1882-1935 Portrait of Start Price USD 2,000.00 Current Price USD 3,750.00 Time Left - Bid Count 8 Buy It Now Price - Reserve Price - Start Time Tuesday, May 20, 2008 End Time Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Location New York, NY See more about '2301: Gaston Lachaise American, 1882-1935 Portrait of' Description Current Lot Gaston Lachaise American, 1882-1935 Portrait of Lemuel Torrens, 1925 Inscribed AMER. ART FDRY. N.Y. and in red ink 60.45 Bronze on a wood base Height 11 5/8 inches Provenance: Hildegarde Watson, Rochester, New York, acquired directly from Gaston Lachaise by 1928 Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York, on loan from the above since 1948 and donated by the same in 1960; until 1990 Christie's, New York, May 22, 1991, lot 231 Salander-O'Reilly, Inc., New York, no. SOR 6510 Sotheby's, New York, September 30, 1997, sale # 1586, lot 426 Private Collection, New York Exhibited: Rochester, New York, The Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Gaston Lachaise, Sculpture and Drawings, January 20-March 4, 1979, no. 21 (as Portrait Head--Samuel A. Torrens, ca. 1924). Rochester, New York, Bevier Gallery, Rochester Institute of Technology, Selected Work from the Art Collection of Dr. James Sibley Watson, Jr., August 19-September 21, 1985, no. 29 (as Lemuel A. Torrens, ca. 1924). Washington, D.C., National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Gaston Lachaise: Portrait Sculpture, 1985-6 (as Lemuel A. Torrens, bronze, ca. 1924). Literature: Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Gaston Lachaise, Sculpture and Drawings, exhibition catalogue, Rochester, N.Y., 1979, pp. 12, 21, fig. 21, p. 30, no. 21 (as Portrait Head--Samuel A. Torrens, ca. 1924). Bevier Gallery, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New, York, Selected Work from the Art Collection of Dr. James Sibley Watson, Jr., exhibition catalogue, Rochester, N.Y., 1985, n. p., no. 29 (as Lemuel A. Torrens, ca. 1924). National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Gaston Lachaise: Portrait Sculpture, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., 1985, pp. 92-93, illustrated (as Lemuel A. Torrens, bronze, ca. 1924). S. Hunter, Lachaise, New York, 1993, pp. 233, 245, illustrated (as Portrait Bust of Lemuel Torrens, 1924). This vigorously modeled portrait bust of Lemuel Allen Torrens (1848-1928), a conductor and voice teacher, was probably commissioned from Gaston Lachaise by the soprano Hildegarde Lasell Watson (1886-1976), Torrens's friend and former student as well as the wife of Dr. James Sibley Watson, Jr. (1894-1982), a co-owner of The Dial. It is one in a series of portraits of six contemporary musicians sculpted by Lachaise from 1924 to 1928 (including a portrait statuette of Hildegarde Watson, now in the collection of the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, Rochester, New York). According to Lachaise, the bust of Torrens (LF 163) was modeled in 1925, and in the same year a plaster cast of the work was sent to the American Art Foundry, in Astoria, Long Island, to be reproduced in bronze. The present bronze, the only known example, was probably made soon after the sculptor's model had been delivered, and certainly no later than 1928 (see Lachaise's notes on the bust for his 1925 photograph album; and V. Budny, "Gaston Lachaise's American Venus: The Genesis and Evolution of Elevation," The American Art Journal, vols. 34-35, 2003-2004, p. 131n. 18). The plaster model has since been lost. We are grateful to Virginia Budny for preparing the catalogue entry for this work. Place a Bid!