Alexander Phimister Proctor

Angela Gross Folk and Dr. Robert Gross, New Jersey (acquired circa 1970)

Thence by descent to the present owner

Alexander Phimister Proctor, Sculptor in Buckskin: An Autobiography by Alexander Phimister Proctor, Norman, Oklahoma 1971, p. 183, another version mentioned (titled Indian Maiden and Fawn)

Patricia Janis Broder, Bronzes of the American West, New York 1974, p. 119, another version mentioned (titled Indian Maiden and Fawn)

Peter H. Hassrick, Wildlife and Western Heroes: Alexander Phimister Proctor, Sculptor, Fort Worth Texas 2003, pp. 208-09, other versions mentioned and illustrated

Alexander Phimister Proctor conceived of the Indian Girl form in 1921, following his experiences with Native American women at the Pendelton Round-Up in Oregon in the late 1910s and early '20s. When he relocated to Rome in 1925, he took the plaster model of Indian Girl with him, where it was well received by patrons. According to Proctor, upon visiting his studio in 1926, the King and Queen of Italy remarked that the "Indian girl group was very beautiful" (as quoted in Peter H. Hassrick, Wildlife and Western Heroes: Alexander Phimister Proctor, Sculptor, Fort Worth, Texas 2003, p. 209). The Italian foundry mark on the present work is reflective of Proctor's time spent in Rome during its casting.

Proctor originally conceived of Indian Girl in two sizes, a small cast measuring 16 inches in height and a larger version in excess of six feet. However, surviving correspondence between the sculptor and California Senator James D. Phelan in which Phelan requested a medium-sized cast "somewhat smaller than life" for his lawn in Saratoga, California, demonstrates that a third iteration of Indian Girl emerged in October of 1926. The present work, standing 39 inches high, hails from this third version commissioned by Senator Phelan.

Although widely celebrated for his powerful and graceful renditions of Native American subjects, Proctor's treatment of the female sitter in Indian Girl is particularly thoughtful, of which the exact edition size is unknown. Feeding a young fawn as it nestles against her leg, this sculpture conveys a certain harmony between man and nature. The communion between the young woman and animal symbolizes charity and celebrates the generosity of humankind.