Large seated nude

Gaston Lachaise’s Two Nudes expresses his long-standing interest in the theme of two embracing women--likely lovers distantly inspired by Verlaine, whose poems he fervently read when he was young. An especially noteworthy early example of the theme in Lachaise’s art is a delicate wash drawing probably dating from first half of the 1910s and now owned by the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts (accession no. 1995.161; https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections?q=1995.161). The postures of the graceful figures in that drawing anticipate those of the robust couple boldly described in the present example--and essayed again in a more simplified version owned by Harvard (accession no. 1995.176; https://www.harvardartmuseums.org/collections?q=1995.176). Similarly, Lachaise’s Seated Woman illustrates his recurrent engagement with the motif of a seated female nude propped on a folded leg so as to tilt her pelvis forward provocatively.

The figures in both of the present drawings reflect Lachaise’s mature ideal of Woman--full-breasted, wasp-waisted, wide-hipped, and powerful-looking—that he masterfully realized in Standing Woman [LF 92] (Museum of Modern Art, accession no. 251.1948; https://www.moma.org/collection/works/81215?locale=en), an heroic statue modeled in 1928-30, copyrighted in 1932, and cast in bronze in about 1933, and which, among other things, is a summa that celebrates the free expression of sexual energy and creative potential advanced by him throughout most of his artistic career.

We are grateful to Virginia Budny, author of the forthcoming catalogue raisonné sponsored by the Lachaise Foundation, for her assistance in preparing the entry for this work.