French/American, 1882-1935
Seated Woman (Figure), circa 1929-31
Signed G Lachaise (lr)
Graphite and brown ink on paper
Sight 14 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches (36.8 x 31.8 cm)

Provenance:
Estate of Isabel Lachaise
[with]E. Weyhe, Inc., New York
Lachaise Foundation, Boston
[with]Felix Landau Gallery, Los Angeles
[with]Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, New York

Exhibited:
San Francisco, CA, San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, Gaston Lachaise: Sculpture and Drawings, September 26-October 29, no. 48; and traveling, for example, to:
Fort Dodge, IA, Des Moines Art Center, January 19- February 14, 1971;
Canton, OH, The Canton Art Institute, June 1-July 14, 1974;
Amarillo, TX, Amarillo Art Center, September 8-October 10, 1976;
Montreal, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, June 17-July 27, 1979;
Fort Dodge, IA, Blanden Memorial Art Gallery, March 15-April 12, 1981;
Wichita, KS, Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, April 20-June 5, 1983
New York, NY, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, Gaston Lachaise [1882—1935]: Sculpture and Drawings, April 28-May 30, 1998, n.p., no. 48

Gaston Lachaise’s Seated Woman represents a nude who is dancing on tiptoes, prominently displaying her derrière, as she seductively turns away from the viewer to play with some drapery. The present title, which is posthumous, is a misnomer, as the back of the nude’s right leg is clearly visible. The drawing has been dated 1932, yet the relationship of the comparatively small image to the space of the page suggests a date of about 1930, as Lachaise’s later drawings of such figures tend to cover large pages. The reverse of the pose appears in Burlesque (Backview); Gaston Lachaise, 1882–1935, exhibition catalogue, Paris: Gallimard, 2007 (English edition), p. 185, plate 100, catalogue no. 83. A front view of the same figure is seen in a drawing now owned by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, accession no. 2018.48; A New American Sculpture, 1914-1945: Lachaise, Laurent, Nadelman, and Zorach, exhibition catalogue, Portland, Maine: Portland Museum of Art. 2017, p. 149, plate 68. These three examples illustrate Lachaise’s fascinating practice of exploring various ways to represent a particular motif or pose.

- Virginia Budny, author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné sponsored by the Lachaise Foundation

Framed 19 1/4 x 17 1/4 inches