Peter Pan
Artist
Harriet Whitney Frishmuth
(1880 - 1980)
Date1936
Mediumsculpture; Bronze, reddish brown patina
Dimensions19 x 14 x 26 in.
ClassificationsSculpture
Credit LineGift of Ruth Talcott
Terms
Object number1980.90
Description"Peter Pan"Frishmuth's methodology often included asking her model what he or she would do in a given situtation. For example, when she was modeling "Joy of the Waters", one of her best-known sculptures, she asked her model, Desha Delteil, what she would do if cold water were thrown on her. The model immediately assumed the pose that Frishmuth captured in her sculpture. (1) In creating ""Peter Pan", Frishmuth used the son of her friend Dr. Jagendorf for the model. (2) In an interview conducted in 1971 by her long-time companion, Ruth Talcott, Frishmuth recalled:
A cousin of mine [Dorothy Frishmuth] whom I never met always wanted one of my pieces. After her death, her husband, Dr. Craig, came to the studio and asked me if I could make a Peter Pan to place between her grave and his in Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, as she had an affinity for Peter Pan and hated being "grown up." I told the little boy who posed for the piece the story of Peter Pan and said to him, "If you were out in the dark, in the woods, and you looked up at the stars for the very first time, what position would you take?" He looked at me with his eyes bright and said, "I'd take this pose" and sat right down on the model table in the pose of my Peter Pan. (3)
Eight casts were made of the sculpture: the first was placed at the Craig grave; another, owned by Charles Aronson, one of Frishmuth's biographers, is placed on the grounds of Aronson's business in Arcade, New York. Other casts are owned by the New Britain and the Forest Lawn Museum, Glendale, California.
DBD
Bibliography:
Marion Couthouy Smith, "The Art of Harriet Frishmuth," "American Magazine of Art 16" (September 1925): 475-79; "Harriet Frishmuth's Bronzes in Evolution," "Metal Arts 1" (December 1928): 101-3; Ruth Talcott, ed., "Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, American Sculptor," Courier [Syracuse University] 9 (October 1971): 29; Ruth Talcott, ed., "Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, 1880-1980," "National Sculpture Review 29" (Summer 1980): 22-25; Charles N. Aronson, "Sculptured Hyacinths" (New York: Vantage Press, 1973); Janis C. Conner and Joel Rosenkranz, "Rediscoveries in American Sculpture": "Studio Works", 1893-1939 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989), pp. 35-42.
Notes:
1. Talcott, "Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, American Sculptor," pp. p. 191. Frishmuth rarely used children for models, preferring to work with professionals; Conner and Rosenkranz, "Rediscoveries" p.38 The name of the sitter for "Peter Pan" is not recorded.
2. Talcott, ed., "Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, p. 29.23, 32.
3. Aronson, :Sculptured Hyacinths", New York Vintage Press 1973 p. 191. Frishmuth rarely used children for models, preferring to work with professionals; Conner and Rosenkranz, "Rediscoveries" p.38 The name of the sitter for "Peter Pan" is not recorded.
4. Talcott, ed., "Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, p. 29.
On View
Not on viewCollections
