Harriet Whitney Frishmuth

Harriet Whitney Frishmuth (1880-1980)

Harriet Frishmuth was born in Philadelphia, but her artistic training began in Europe, where she spent much of her youth traveling with her mother and sister. In Switzerland she was encouraged to try her hand at sculpture by a Mrs. Hinton, possibly Lucy Brownson Hinton, an American painter and sculptor. About 1899 she began her artistic studies in Paris with Auguste Rodin, Jean-Antoine Injalbert, and Henri-Desiré Gauquié. She then studied in Berlin with Cuno von Euchtritz; at the Art Students League in New York with Hermon Atkins MacNeil and Solon Borglum, one of her most influential teachers; and at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, where she learned anatomy. She apprenticed with Borglum and with Karl Bitter and opened her own studio in New York in 1908.

By that year she had begun to receive important commissions, notably for a relief of Dr. Abraham Jacobi for the New York County Medical Society (1910). Having already made her debut at the Paris Salon in 1903, she began to exhibit her works publically in the States. In 1912 Frishmuth was one of several women sculptors featured in an exhibition at Gorham Galleries, New York. About this time she developed the specialization for which she became best known: small and medium-size bronzes, mostly figural and allegorical, some conceived to adorn fountains. “The Vine” (1921; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and “Joy of the Waters” (1920; National Academy of Design, New York) are typical of her work in this genre.

The popularity of such figures brought Frishmuth several major public commissions during the 1920s. For example, Wilbur Foshay commissioned a cast of “Scherzo” (1921) for the courtyard of Foshay Tower in Minneapolis; and Bartleett Arkell, president of the Beech Nut Company, Canajoharie, New York, commissioned a cast of “Humoresque” (Canajoharie Library and Art Gallery) as the central figure for a fountain. In 1928 Frishmuth had her first one-man show, at the Grand Central Art Galleries in New York.

In the 1930s Frishmuth's work became more introspective, as indicated by the titles of her sculptures from this period, such as “Reflections” (ca. 1931), “Longing” (1929), and “Daydreams” (1939). She spent the final decades of her life supervising the casting and sale of sculptures she had modeled from the teens to the 1930s, the peak of her career.

“Peter Pan”, 1936

Bronze, 19 x 14 x 26 in. (48.3 x 35.6 x 66 cm)

Signed and dated (base, lower right): “HARRIET. W. FRISHMUTH”. 1936; inscribed (rear base): “ROMAN BRONZE WORKS INC N.Y.”

Edition of 8.

Gift of Ruth Talcott (1980.90)

“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:

. Talcott, ed., "Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, p. 23, 32.

. 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.

. Talcott, ed., "Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, p. 29.