Harriet Whitney Frishmuth
It was in 1916 that Desha knocked at my studio door in Sniffen Court and asked if I could use her. I liked her attitude right away but I didn’t have time just then. I took her name and address and told her I would let her know when I could work her in. When we had finished our little chat she went out skipping, half dancing and singing through the courtyard to the street.
That was the beginning of a very pleasant relationship between Desha and me. She posed for me for years and is the model in ninety percent of my more important work. At first I used her for my class of five or six pupils. Then one week I had her pose just for me and as neither of us knew exactly what we wanted I put record on the Victrola. It was L’Extaseby Scribian. Desha started dancing and one pose intrigued me. I carried it out and called the finished bronze Extase after the music.
– Harriet Whitney Frishmuth
Harriet Whitney Frishmuth was born in Philadelphia, in 1880, to a family of physicians. She was in her teens when her parents divorced and Frishmuth moved to Europe with her mother and sisters. During the eight years that they lived in Europe, Frishmuth studied briefly with Auguste Rodin at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and for two years with Cuno von Uechtritz-Steinkirch in Berlin.
It was Rodin who emphasized the importance of human movement in sculpture and influenced Frishmuth to create works that were inspired by dance.
When she returned to the U.S. she studied at the Art Students League of New York under Gutzon Borglum, best known for his work on Mount Rushmore and Hermon Atkins MacNeil, who designed the Standing Liberty quarter. She also studied dissection and human anatomy at the College of Physicians and Surgeons
In 1910, Frishmuth received her first commission from the New York County Medical Society. She designed ashtrays, bookends and small figures for the Gorham Manufacturing Company, one of the largest American manufacturers of sterling and silver-plate and a foundry for bronze sculpture, and her career began to grow.
Frishmuth set up a house and studio in the Sniffen Court neighborhood in Manhattan in 1913. She sculpted and taught classes in the studio. One of the models that Frishmuth used most often for her work, and to model for her students, was Yugoslavian ballet dancer, Desha Delteil.
Frishmuth's smaller sculptures were bought by private collectors and museums, her larger sculptures by museums and public gardens.
Frishmuth closed her studio during the Depression and returned to Philadelphia.
Throughout her career, Frishmuth was honored for her masterful sculptures. She was elected to the National Academy of Design and her sculpture was exhibited at the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
Her works are in the permanent collection of The Met, Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in Minnesota, the New Britain Museum of American Art in Connecticut and many other public venues.
A catalog of her works can be found at the Smithsonian and her papers and drawings at Syracuse University.
Harriet Whitney Firshmuth died in Waterbury, Connecticut in 1980, at the age of 99.
Reference:
Dreiss, Joseph G., “The Sculpture of Harriet Whitney Frishmuth and New York Dance.” The Courier, 312 (1994): 29-40.
