Rodin_2011

27. Cambodian Female Dancer, frontal view (Danseuse cambodgienne de face)

190 6– 07 Graphite, watercolor, gouache and heightened wih black pencil on wove paper 12 ½ x 9 3 ⁄ 8 inches ( 31 . 8 x 23 . 9 cm)  Signed at the bottom right: A. Rodin provenance Formerly Collection Paul Burty Haviland ( 1880 – 1950 ); Private Collection, New York; sale, Sotheby’s, New York, November, 8 , 200 6; Private Collection. literature O. Grautoff, Auguste Rodin , Bielefeld / Leipzig, Velhagen und Klasing, 1908 , p. 97 ; A. Stieglitz, Camera Work , vol. 34 / 35 , 1911 , in margin, illus.; C. Buley-Uribe “After Marseille,” excat, J. Vilain, ed., Rodin et les danseuses cambodgiennes. Sa dernière passion , Paris, Rodin Museum, 200 6, fig. 87 , p. 48 , illus. Reproduced as early as 1908 , and then again in 1911 , this drawing from the Haviland Collection, together with the study sheet of the Female Cambodian Dancers in the Collection the Boymans Van Beuningen Museum of Rotterdam, is one of the best known of Rodin’s drawings. Our work is a variation of two other drawings, the Female Dancer in Yellow in the collection of the Stockholm National Museum, (inv. N.M 118 / 1929 ) 1 and the Female Dancer in Green , in the collection of the Rodin Museum ( d4449 ). 2 All three works show figures in the same pose, facing out with the right arm horizontally raised. Our work is one of a small number of drawings of Cambodian women published during the artist’s lifetime and shortly after they were created. 1 In 1908 , Otto Grautoff decided to illustrate his book on Rodin with this drawing, a frontal view of a figure, along with another drawing of a figure in profile, probably in an attempt to illustrate what he considered the three-dimensional aspects of a sculptor’s sketch. The work was shown twice, in 1908 and 1910 , at the “Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession” that Alfred Stieglitz had created a few years before at 291 Fifth Avenue in New York City. In 1911 , this drawing was published in number 34 / 35 of the magazine Camera Work which was founded by Stieglitz as a catalogue for these exhibits. Starting in 1910 , Stieglitz had decided to broaden the scope of Camera Work and open it to all of the arts. The magazine made an effort to reproduce the pictures on exhibit at the gallery as accurately as possible, using photoengraving techniques on Japanese paper. Rodin’s drawings, well known (and criticized) for their spontaneous quality, naturally found their place. Once Rodin’s drawings had been published in Camera Work , he then became a key figure of the inner circle of “secessionist artists” gaining renown to American collectors, including Gertrude Käsebier, Adolf de Meyer, Alvin L. Coburn and of course perhaps the best known