Existing comment:
Helene Sardeau, 1899-1968
Belgian-born artist Hélène Sardeau, who moved to New York as a young teenager, first gained attention while still in art school with a series of expressive, long-limbed doll portraits of actors and socialites modeled from life. Rudolf Valentino ordered 160 of his portrait dolls to display in movie theaters, and the press took notice. Subsequently Sardeau focused her career primarily on sculpture and large-scale bas-reliefs and her work was exhibited around the country and abroad. Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield praised her ability "to combine the classical form with modern thought and modern sensibility."
Marguerite Zorach's striking pencil portraits of friends and family, with their broad, stylized faces and almost surreal emphasis on heavily outlined oval eyes, suggest the influence of both Henri Matisse and Diego Rivera, whose work she would have seen during her early studies in Paris.
Marguerite Zorach, c 1935 |