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Ideal Head

Maker (American, 1882 - 1946)
Additional Title(s)
  • Head of a Young Woman
ClassificationsSCULPTURE
Dateca. 1908-1911
Mediummarble
Dimensionsheight: 12 5/8 in. (32 cm.)
Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Purchased with funds from the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation Acquisition Fund for American Art and Hannah and Russel Kully
Label TextBorn in Poland, Elie Nadelman moved to Paris early in his career, where he met Pablo Picasso and studied ancient sculpture at the Louvre. This work, one of a series of idealized heads he made in this period, shows these various influences.

Its format and material recalls ancient classical statuary, while the simplified repeated curve in the brow and hair reflect Nadelman’s interest in abstract beauty: “all that is logical is beautiful,” he once proclaimed.

Status
On view
Object number2017.10
Photography © 2014 Fredrik Nilsen
Elie Nadelman
ca. 1914-1915
Object number: 2004.9
Ideal Landscape
John Glover
n.d.
Object number: 59.55.605
Head of a Boy
Joseph Nollekens
1796
Object number: 80.17
Head of a Young Girl
John Gibson
ca. 1820
Object number: 68.42
Head of Albert Einstein
Jacob Epstein
1933
Object number: 84.35.4
Head of a Boy
Sargent Claude Johnson
ca. 1928
Object number: 2015.5
Head of a Cherub
Louis Claude Vassé
1775
Object number: 2012.28
Well Head
Unknown, German, 18th Century
18th Century
Object number: 22.7
Head of a Boy
Robert Le Lorrain
1700-1750
Object number: 27.98
Head of a Girl
Robert Le Lorrain
1700-1750
Object number: 27.97
Photography © 2014 Fredrik Nilsen
John Gregory
1923
Object number: 2003.11
Bust of a Young Boy
Louis Claude Vassé
ca. 1825-1875
Object number: 78.20.51