The Lachaise Foundation

Note:

Torso of Elevation is one of Lachaise’s fragments or partial figures and reveals the sculptor’s debt to Rodin, who first challenged the classic conception of a completed artwork. Torso of Elevation was exhibited in plaster in 1935 at the Museum of Modern Art’s Retrospective of Lachaise, placed alongside the monumental Standing Woman (‘Elevation,’) 1912-27, the artist’s first, full-scale exuberant expression of the idealized female form. Lachaise had told Isabel, “I want to create a miracle with it . . . as great as you.” Titled Torso (Fragment of no. 16), plaster (1934), Torso of Elevation appears as a separate work in the 1935 retrospective, a time when Lachaise was exploring the expressive potential of the anatomical fragment in his work. As a fragment, the sculpture plays an important role in the evolution of Lachaise’s personal style. Donald Goodall writes in his dissertation on Lachaise, “[These] torsos and segments erupted into the most powerfully emotive symbolism in the American Art of his time,” (vol. I, part II, p. 193). Based on the body type, it is clear that the inspiration for this work is Isabel Dutaud Nagel, the sculptor’s muse and wife, whose likeness appears throughout Lachaise’s work.

One bronze, cast during the artist’s lifetime or under the direction of the artist’s widow, Isabel Lachaise, was acquired in 1954 by the Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute in Utica, NY from Edith Halpert at the Downtown Gallery in New York. The Lachaise Foundation, established in 1963, owns the original plaster model and has overseen an edition of 7 bronze casts plus one AP. Cast 5/7 is the last cast available for sale. The other casts are at the Williams College Museum of Art (1/7); the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2/7); the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque (3/7); the Corcoran Gallery in Washington, DC (4/7); the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (6/7); and the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University (7/7).

Image of the plaster: https://www.loc.gov/item/gsc1994012674/PP/

The Armory Show 2023

Booth 321