Czére Andrea szerk.: A Szépművészeti Múzeum közleményei 102-103. (Budapest, 2005)

ANNUAL REPORT 2005 - A 2005. ÉV - FERENC TÓTH: Women: The Art of Gaston Lachaise

WOMAN: THE ART OF GASTON LACHAISE 29 September 2005 - 8 January 2006 Curator: Ferenc Tóth WOMAN: THE ART OF GASTON LACHAISE. ED. FERENC TÓTH. MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. BUDAPEST 2005. HUNGARIAN AND ENGLISH TEXT. 153 PP., 34 COL. ILLS., ISBN 963 7063 10 2 FERENC TÓTH. WOMAN: THE ART OF GASTON LACHAISE. MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS. BUDAPEST 2005, ENGLISH TEXT. 31 PP, 13 COL. ILLS.. ISBN 963 7063 10 2 Gaston Lachaise (1882-1935) was a contemporary of Picasso, Braque and Brancusi, those artists who revolutionised European art. Lachaise moved from Paris to the United States in 1906, where he became one of the pioneers of modern American sculpture and a key-figure of American art. The artistic aim of his carrier as a sculptor was to mould into form the profound feelings that tied him to his wife, Isabel. For Lachaise, his wife was his life-long Muse and model: she was the Woman, to whom he dedicated his entire oeuvre, to render her immortal. The standing figures, moulded in a series, attest to Lachaise's aesthetic ideals concerning female beauty. These figures originally remained between the classic conventions of the sculptural discipline, yet they are fuller and more robust than the classical ideals. Drawing on his classical training as a sculptor, Lachaise found his way towards Modernism through the radical expression of sexuality. In his later works, the emphasis on the external appearance of Isabel shifted to expressing the artist's desire for her. Sensuality and the sensitivity for forms are united in the moulding of the material. It was exactly this passion that helped Lachaise to get rid of his inhibitions as a sculptor. Since the exploitation of this passion was not directed by a conscious artistic intention, but rather by a psychological obsession, his oeuvre unavoidably became uneven. It depends in every moment on what emerges to the fore in his art: obscenity or his original artistic talent. In 1935, Lachaise had the honour of being the first living sculptor to have a retrospective exhibition in the Museum of iModern Art in New York. The far-reaching endeavour of the Boston-based Lachaise Foundation aims at making Lachaise's work known and appreciated in Europe, as his artistic rank deserves.