Elie Nadelman

An exhibition of drawings by Elie Nadelman — stunning, never-before-shown works on paper created by the 20th Century master after he came to New York in 1914 — will open at the June Kelly Gallery on November 9. The exhibition will continue through December 11.

The pen and inks, washes, and pencil sketches demonstrate Nadelman’s preoccupation with the simplest of artistic elements, the curve. They also reflect his artistic innovations in pre-World War I Paris and his observations of American life and society after his arrival here. The drawings in the show will be accompanied by two small sculptures from the same period. All the work is from the artist’s estate.

Nadelman had emerged in the decade before World War I as an influential member of the European avant-garde, along with Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse.

In an essay in the exhibition brochure, art historian Ronny Cohen notes that in 1908 Leo Stein, Gertrude’s brother, took Pablo Picasso to visit Nadelman in his studio in Paris. Picasso saw some of the drawings and sculptures that Nadelman was working on and soon began using some of those shapes and lines in his own Cubist work.

Another major painter of that time in Paris whose work began reflecting Nadelman’s influence was Amedeo Modigliani, who had seen his work in a major Paris exhibition in 1909.

By 1918, Nadelman had settled in New York with a studio on Madison Avenue and had become a leader on the New York art scene, producing sculptures and drawings for exhibitions in New York.

American audiences were enthralled with his rendering of the classic Head of a Woman, from about 1917, and his alluring Woman on a Settee from around 1918.

In 1910 in a statement for Alfred Steiglitz’s journal Camera Work, Nadelman wrote, “I employ no other line than the curve, which possesses freshness and force.” He also said, “The subject is nothing but pretext for creating significant form.”

His drawings, says Cohen, were “dazzling in subtle variations in shape, weight, density and also gesture happening even in different segments of the same line….

“The variety of papers, the bonds, laid linens, striped sheets, and the different ways they hold ink, wash, and pencil shows his enjoyment of and the pleasure he took in the unique physicality of the drawing medium.”

Nadelman was born in Warsaw, Poland, in 1882 when Poland was under Russian rule. He attended art and drawing schools in Warsaw. He died on December 28, 1946, in Riverdale, NY.

Major retrospectives of Nadelman’s work were organized by the Museum of Modern Art in 1948, the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1975 and 2003, the American Federation of Arts in 2001 and the National Museum of Warsaw in 2004.

Nadelman is represented in the collections of most major museums in the United States, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Amon Carter Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Baltimore Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Wadsworth Atheneum, and many others. New York’s Lincoln Center is home to 24-foot marble versions of Nadelman’s papier-mâché sculptures, Two Circus Women and Two Circus Women (Standing and Seated) from around 1930.

An exhibition of the folk-art collection amassed by Nadelman and his wife Viola at their home in Riverdale is planned for 2015 at the New-York Historical Society.

1882	Elie Nadelman was born in Warsaw, Poland, when Poland was under Russian rule. Attends art and drawing schools in Warsaw.
1903	Goes to Munich for six months to study art.
1904	Arrives in Paris, where he remains for 10 years. He becomes a part of the avant-garde circle of artists and intellectuals that included Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Guillaume Apollinaire and Gertrude Stein. Exhibits in Salons d’Automne and Salons des Indépendants.
1907-08	Leo Stein becomes an avid collector. Stein takes Pablo Picasso to Nadelman’s studio in 1908.
1909	One-man exhibition at Galerie Druet in Paris. Nadelman exhibits sculptures and approximately 100 drawings of heads and figures, displaying both a knowledge of classical sculpture and an experimentation with the break-up of forms.
1911	One-man exhibition at Paterson’s Gallery, London – mainly marble heads. Helena Rubinstein becomes a major patron, buying most of the work in the exhibition.
1913	Nadelman sends drawings and sculpture to the Armory Show in New York. Second one-man exhibition at Galerie Druet.
1914	Publishes a portfolio of engraved facsimiles of drawings, “Vers l’Unité plastique,” republished in 1921 in the United States as “Vers la Beauté plastique.” Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, Gertrude Stein, and Adolf Basler, among others, write about Nadelman. At the outbreak of World War I, Nadelman is unable to return to Poland or Russia to join the army. Goes to London, commissioned by Helena Rubinstein to create decorative reliefs for her house. Nadelman travels to New York in October.
1915	First one-man exhibition in New York at Alfred Stieglitz’s Photo-Secession Gallery (291). Exhibits plaster version of Man in the Open Air; the bronze is now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Exhibits plaster horse, bought by Helena Rubinstein, now at the National Gallery of Australia.
1917	Large solo exhibition at Scott & Fowles Gallery in New York, mainly marble and bronze neo-classical heads and figures informed by abstraction.
1918	Nadelman is friendly with the Stettheimer sisters and their circle.
1919	Exhibits painted-plaster sculptures of people in modern dress at Knoedler & Co., including Woman at the Piano, Tango, Cellist, Orchestra Conductor. Marries Viola Spiess Flannery.
1920	Shows the plaster sculptures at Bernheim-Jeune in Paris. He and Viola begin collecting folk art, for which they will eventually create a museum.
1922	Son Jan is born.
1920-30	Nadelmans amass a large collection of folk art from both the United States and Europe.
1925	Exhibits painted-wood and painted-bronze sculptures based on the 1918 plasters at Scott & Fowles, along with his more traditional bronzes and marbles.
1927	One-man exhibition at Knoedler & Co., of his newest sculpture: galvano-plastique (electroplated plaster) standing and seated circus performers and busts. Exhibit travels to Bernheim-Jeune in Paris.
1929	Commissioned to create sculptural figure group for the façade of the Fuller Building at 57^th Street and Madison Avenue (still extant). Nadelmans sustain major real-estate and stock losses in the Stock Market Crash.
1929-35	Nadelman begins working in terra-cotta and papier-maché, less costly materials than marble and bronze.
1937	New-York Historical Society buys the bulk of the folk-art collection, and the Nadelmans’ museum is dismantled.
1935-46	Creates hundreds of small plaster figures whose influences range from Tanagra figurines to modern-day bathing beauties.
1942	As a volunteer he instructs veterans in sculpture modeling at the Bronx Veterans’ Hospital, where he works for two years. During the war, Nadelman is sporadically in touch with and tries to help family members in Poland. Many perish in the Holocaust. Nadelman has a serious heart condition.
1946	Nadelman dies on December 28, Riverdale, NY
Nadelman’s work is in the collections of most major museums in the United States, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Amon Carter Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Baltimore Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Wadsworth Atheneum, and many others. New York’s Lincoln Center is home to 24-foot marble enlargements of Nadelman’s five-foot papier-maché sculptures, Two Circus Women and Two Circus Women (Standing and Seated), from around 1930. Major retrospectives were organized by the Museum of Modern Art in 1948, the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1975 and 2003, the American Federation of Arts in 2001, and the National Museum of Warsaw in 2004. An exhibition of the Nadelman folk-art collection is planned for 2015 at the New-York Historical Society.