Elie Nadelman (1882-1946)

In the mid-1920s, Elie Nadelman explored the theme of large-scale sculpture of female figures in a variety of gestural poses, which make "these figures appear to have been caught in moments of private self-absorption, oblivious to the world outside themselves." The purposely mysterious aura of Nadelman's work from this period, including Seated Circus Lady, is enhanced by their "softened contours and indistinct facial demarcations...With their great, strong thighs and exaggeratedly small feet, they project a monumentality at once vulnerable and self-contained." (B. Haskell, Elie Nadelman: Sculptor of Modern Life, exhibition catalogue, New York, 2003, pp. 157-58, 161)

Nadelman originally cast Seated Circus Lady using a technique for more easily creating large-scale sculptures called galvano-plastique, in which he electroplated the surface of plaster with a thin veneer of metal. As Barbara Haskell explains, "The medium appealed to Nadelman because of its potential for unusual finishes and its ability to replicate bronze...He scratched these mottled, alchemical surfaces with a file to evoke the weathered appearance of antiquities and to create an allover surface shimmer." (Elie Nadelman: Sculptor of Modern Life, p. 157) The artist's estate later authorized six casts of Seated Circus Lady to be produced in bronze, with a similar scratched and weathered surface texture, and the present example is number five of this edition.