| /

Clearly the work of a very skilled artist, a bust this size commands notice. Also, when you are nude yet wearing a beautiful necklace, it gets people's attention. But perhaps most of all, even more than her razor sharp cheekbones, it is the impenetrable expression achieved in this gorgeous sculpture that is most compelling.

In a NY Times review of a showing at The Clay Club in Greenwhich Village in  1947, praising her work, the paper noted that Arline Wingate is "...very effective at conveying personality". So that regal stare? Not an accident. (This was by no means her first gallery show; her 1934 NY Times wedding announcement contained this charming, and exceedingly unique, fact: “The bride is a well known sculptress.”)

Some time in mid-20th century New York City, the very accomplished sculptor Arline Wingate, recognized the very accomplished--and very famous--scuptor Isamu Noguchi, almost exactly her age, at an art supply store on Canal Street frequented by artists.

"He asked me if I could tell him how to do a patina - a technique for making plaster look like bronze - and I did..." she told a reporter at The East Hampton Star, on her 91st birthday, in 1997. (She died a year later, in 1998,10 years after Mr. Noguchi, as it happens.)

Before we read this juicy tidbit, we already loved this large female bust by Arline Wingate, which is in fact plaster made to look like bronze. Ms. Wingate was well known for portrait sculpture in her early career. In the 1920s, 30s and 40s, she created likenesses of celebrities like Silvia Sydney, Harpo Marx, George Gershwin, and Prince William of Sweden, among many others...so of course we can't help but wonder who this haughty Jackie Kennedy look-alike is?

But it doesn't matter, whoever this woman is, she's destined to be one of the most interesting people in any room she's in--a quality she shared with her creator, we're sure.

In 1997, a year before her death, The Arlene Bujese Gallery in Ms. Wingate's longtime hometown of East Hampton NY, gave her a 60-year retrospectiveof her work. 

We're quite honored to have just one of many artistic achievements of this noteworthy mid-century artist on offer in our shop.

21" H x 15.5" W x 9" D