Jacques Lipchitz

Jeffrey H. Loria, New York (acquired from the artist in 1969)
Greer Gallery, New York (acquired from the above on April 2, 1969)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

La Baigneuse was first conceived in stone in 1924, while Lipchitz was living in Paris.  As one of the most successful sculptors among the Cubists, Lipchitz was fascinated with maintaining the harmony of abstract forms, and the present work is an example of his achievements to this end. In less than eight years, Lipchitz moved from the stylized naturalism of the standing female nude in Woman and Gazelles, 1911-12, to the complex faceting of La Baigneuse.  After a brief period in 1915-16 when his sculpture verged on abstraction, Lipchitz struggled to find a balance between the abstract and figurative elements in his work. In his sculptures of the 1920s, he moved away from the frontality of his most radical Cubist style and adopted more complex, twisting poses that frequently refer to traditional treatments of the theme of the nude in the history of sculpture.

According to a letter received by the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, the artist saw this work while it was on exhibition there in 1972, and confirmed the title of this piece.  This sculpture has recently been examined by the Modern Art Foundry in New York, which was responsible for casting many of the artist's sculptures during the latter half of the 20th century.  The Modern Art Foundry confirmed that the casting of this work is consistent with that of Lipchitz's other bronzes, and proposed that this sculpture was most likely executed at a foundry in Italy in the late 1960s or early 1970s.