Between 1913 and 1934–35 Lachaise made four variants on the theme of The Mountain—executed in different materials (black sandstone, fieldstone, bronze, and cast concrete) and vastly different sizes (from table top to overlifesize). In all of them, Lachaise emphasized the correspondence between the rotund figure of a reclining woman and the "fertile rolling pastures, broad and soft as fecund breasts" found in the natural landscape.
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Inscription: Signed and dated (back of base): G. Lachaise / 1924
Marking: Foundry mark (back of base, center): ROMAN BRONZE WORKS N–Y–
the artist (sold in 1927 and again as repayment of a loan in May 1929, both times to Stieglitz); Alfred Stieglitz, New York (1927–d. 1946; his estate, 1946–49; gift to MMA)
Intimate Gallery, New York. "Gaston Lachaise Sculptures," March 7–April 3, 1927, brochure no. 13 (as "Montagne").
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "History of an American, Alfred Stieglitz: '291' and After, Selections from the Stieglitz Collection," July 1–November 1, 1944, no. 194.
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "Alfred Stieglitz Exhibition: His Collection," June 10–August 31, 1947, no catalogue (checklist no. 4).
Art Institute of Chicago. "Alfred Stieglitz: His Photographs and His Collection," February 2–29, 1948, no catalogue.
Museum of Modern Art, New York. "From the Alfred Stieglitz Collection: An Extended Loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 22–August 12, 1951, no catalogue (checklist no. E.L.51.664; loan extended to June 9, 1958).
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "The Decade of the Armory Show: New Directions in American Art 1910–1920," February 27–April 14, 1963, not in catalogue.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "Gaston Lachaise (1882–1935): Sculpture and Drawings," December 3, 1963–January 19, 1964, no. 45.
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Gaston Lachaise (1882–1935): Sculpture and Drawings," February 18–April 5, 1964, no. 45.
Ithaca, N. Y. Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. "Gaston Lachaise, 1882–1935," November 6–December 20, 1974, unnum. brochure (as "Mountain: Statuette").
Frederick S. Wight Art Galleries, University of California, Los Angeles. "Gaston Lachaise, 1882–1935," January 12–February 23, 1975, unnum. brochure.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. "Gaston Lachaise, 1882–1935," March 8–April 20, 1975, unnum. brochure.
Minneapolis. Walker Art Center. "Gaston Lachaise, 1882–1935," June 7–July 20, 1975, unnum. brochure.
Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester. "Gaston Lachaise: Sculpture and Drawings," January 20–March 4, 1979, no. 20.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Human Figure in Transition, 1900–1945: American Sculpture from the Museum's Collection," April 15–September 28, 1997, extended to March 29, 1998, unnum. brochure.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Stieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe," October 13, 2011–January 2, 2012, no. 108.
Henry McBride. "Gaston Lachaise Displays His Most Recent Carvings." New York Sun (March 12, 1927), p. 5.
Albert TenEyck Gardner. American Sculpture: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1965, p. 143.
Dorothy Norman. Alfred Stieglitz: An American Seer. New York, 1973, pp. 171–72, fig. 76.
Gerald Nordland. Gaston Lachaise: The Man and His Work. New York, 1974, pp. 113–14, fig. 55.
Janet Hobhouse. "The Anatomy of Love." Connoisseur 215 (December 1985), p. 92, ill.
Janet Hobhouse. The Bride Stripped Bare: The Artist and the Nude in the Twentieth Century. London, 1988, pp. 187–89, fig. 154.
Grace Glueck. "Of American Sculptors and the Human Figure." New York Times (June 6, 1997), p. C22, calls it "Mountain".
Joan M. Marter inAmerican Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Thayer Tolles. Vol. 2, A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born between 1865 and 1885. New York and New Haven, 2001, pp. 678–79, no. 316, ill.
American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture. Sotheby's, New York. May 24, 2006, p. 157, under lot 113.
Thayer Tolles inStieglitz and His Artists: Matisse to O'Keeffe. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Ed. Lisa Mintz Messinger. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2011, pp. 147, 149, 265, no. 108, ill. (color).
Gaston Lachaise (American (born France) Paris 1882–1935 New York)
ca. 1908
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