Paul Howard Manship

(1885-1966)

Indian and Pronghorn Antelope the first, 12 3/4 in. (32.4 cm.) high; the second, 12 in. (30.5 cm.) high; on a 7/8 in. (2.2 cm.) high marble base, each

Footnotes

Provenance
J. Alden Weir (1852-1919), New York, acquired from the artist.
Cora (née Weir) Burlingham (1892-1986), New York, daughter of the above, by descent from the above, 1919.
Private collection, Connecticut.
Peter H. Davidson & Co., New York.
Harvey N. Saligman (1938-2013) and Linda Powell Saligman, St. Louis and Nantucket, by 2012.
Private collection, acquired from the above.
Acquired by the present owner from the above.

Literature
Gorham Company, Bronze Division, Gorham Company, Bronze Division Papers: 4. Casting Records of Statuary and Small Bronzes Owned by Sculptors, Identification Assigned to Statuary and Bronzes, 1906-1930, New York, 1915, p. 182, nos. QAFD, QAFE, other examples listed. (as Indian and Antelope)
A.E. Gallatin, Paul Manship: A Critical Essay on His Sculpture and an Iconography, New York, 1917, p. 13, other examples listed and another example illustrated.
"Garden Statuary by Paul Manship: In Which Archaic Forms Are Modernized in a Pleasantly Sophisticated Manner," House and Garden, June 1921, vol. XXXIX, no. 6, p. 62, monumental version illustrated.
P. Vitry, Paul Manship: Sculpteur Americain, Paris, 1927, p. 38, pls. 31-32, another example illustrated.
E. Murtha, Paul Manship, New York, 1957, p. 152, nos. 51-52.
A.TE. Gardner, American Sculpture: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1965, p. 151, 185, 188, nos. 48.149.27, 48.149.28, another example illustrated. (as Indian Hunter and Pronghorn Antelope)
L.H. Dodd, Ph.D., L.H.D., Golden Moments in American Sculpture, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1967, p. 73, monumental version listed. (as Indian Hunter and Antelope)
P.J. Broder, Bronzes of the American West, New York, 1974, pp. 286, 399, pl. 340, another example illustrated.
Detroit Institute of Arts, The Influence of Paris: European and American Sculpture 1830-1930, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, 1981, p. 27, no. 2, another example illustrated.
Minnesota Museum of Art, Paul Manship: Changing Taste in America, exhibition catalogue, 1985, pp. 136-37, 156, nos. 97-98, another example illustrated.
K. Greenthal, P.M. Kozol, J.S. Ramirez, J.L. Fairbanks, American Figurative Sculpture in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Boston, 1986, p. 400, monumental version listed.
Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., From the Studio: Selections of American Sculpture, 1811-1941, New York, 1986, pp. 52-53, figs. 33a-33b, another example illustrated.
J. Conner, J. Rosenkranz, Rediscoveries in American Sculpture: Studio Works, 1893-1939, Austin, 1989, pp. 135, 138-39, 205, another example illustrated.
J. Manship, Paul Manship, New York, 1989, pp. 54, 67-69, figs. 45, 60, 61, another example illustrated.
H. Rand, Paul Manship, Washington, D.C., 1989, pp. 36, 40-41, figs. 26-27, another example illustrated.
T. Tolles, ed., D.J. Hassler, J.M. Marter, T. Tolles, J.L. Thompson, American Sculpture in The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Volume II. A Catalogue of Works by Artists Born between 1865 and 1885, New York, 2001, pp. 751-53, 785-87, nos. 377-78, another example illustrated. (as Indian Hunter and Pronghorn Antelope)
Denver Art Museum, Shaping the West: American Sculptors of the 19th Century, Denver, 2010, p. 9, another example illustrated.
J.D. Burke, W. Adelson, A.L. Duncan, Saint Louis: The Saligman Collection, Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, 2012, pp. 34, 108-9, 115, 205, illustrated.
T. Tolles, T.B. Smith, C. Clark, B.W. Dippie, P.H. Hassrick, K. Lemmey, J. Murphy, The American West in Bronze, 1850-1925, New York, 2013, pp. 53-54, 158, 171, 190 nos., 32, 34, figs. 66-67, another example illustrated. (as Indian Hunter and Pronghorn Antelope)

Other examples of this version can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (object nos. 48.149.28, 48.149.27), the Art Institute of Chicago (reference no. 1914.823a-b), the Detroit Institute of Arts (accession no. 60.64.B), the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, Cody, Wyoming (3.89A/B), the Saint Louis Art Museum (object nos. 75:1915, 76:1915), and the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth (accession no. 1997.3).

Indian and Pronghorn Antelope exhibits Paul Manship's mastered unification of the classical academic principles of sculpture with modern, innovative techniques of design that distinguished him from his contemporaries. As a result, Manship rose to become one of the most preeminent sculptors of the twentieth century, attracting both commercial success and praise from critics throughout his career. As Dr. Susan Rather notes, "His modernism lay in the greater importance of form than subject to the effect of his works and the provocative combination of stylization and naturalism; his conceptualized treatment of form, in particular, signified originality." (S. Rather, Archaism, Modernism, and the Art of Paul Manship, Austin, 1993, p. 106)

Born in Minnesota in 1885, Manship eventually left home at the age of nineteen for New York where he would go on to study alongside renowned sculptors of the period, such as Hermon Atkins MacNeil (1866-1947), Charles Grafly (1862-1929), and Solon Hannibal Borglum (1868-1922). From 1908 to 1909, Manship worked under the respected Beaux-Arts sculptor, Isidore Konti (1862-1938) and under Konti's tutelage, he exponentially developed his techniques as a modeler. In 1909, At Konti's insistence, Manship entered the competition for the esteemed Prix de Rome and admission to the American Academy. To both Manship and Konti's delight, Manship won the prize with his relief Rest After Toil and moved to Rome later that year to begin his studies at the Academy. During his three-year stay at the Academy, Manship thrived in his studies and took advantage of opportunities to travel through Italy and Greece, building a visual diary of forms that would inspire his work in years to come. At each site Manship visited, he was drawn to the simplicity of forms and the balance of decorative stylizations, especially those found in designs of hair and drapery. After completing his studies at the Academy, Manship returned to New York in 1912 to find an audience in favor of his developing style, and commissions soon followed.

Modeled in 1914, Indian and Pronghorn Antelope was initially designed by Manship as a pair meant to adorn two pedestals that flanked the mantelpiece of his New York apartment. The final designs exhibit Manship's affinity for rendering both human and animal form simplistically and in a style that is both classical and modern. Both are constructed using reduced forms and carefully considered stylized lines that ultimately allow Manship to achieve his symbolic and sculptural motivations for the piece. Additionally, "Manship activated the empty air between the Indian and his prey. The separation of the two sculptures serves as a kind of 'spark gap'--the imagined flight of the arrow as it lands in the side of the rearing antelope carries the gaze to the Indian, completing the circuit." (H. Rand, Paul Manship, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., 1989, p. 36) In Indian and Pronghorn Antelope, Manship also emphasizes the musculature of both the hunter and the antelope to effectively portray the tense, singular moment between the two as the hunter releases his bow sending his arrow into the antelope's side. Furthermore, he gives special attention to his designs for the grounds on which his hunter and antelope reside on, ultimately elevating the drama of the scene through the challenging, varied terrain and further creating space between the two.

Manship exhibited Indian and Pronghorn Antelope in 1914 in Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the pair would become one of the artist's most commercially successful works. Upon seeing them exhibited, Herbert L. Pratt (1871-1945) commissioned Manship to produce a heroic version for his gardens at his home in Glen Cove, Long Island, New York that now reside at the Mead Art Museum of Amherst College. In discussing the commission, Manship recalled, "[Herbert Pratt] came to see me and said, 'Now, what do you think you want to charge me for these things? ... I would have been delighted to do them for $5,000 at that time. So he said, 'Now you just tell me what you think would be a nice comfortable figure for these.' 'Well,' I said, 'do you think $15,000 would be too much to ask for them?' 'No,' he said. 'That's just right. That's fine.' So I thought that was a very encouraging way to treat a young sculptor. It meant that I really was free to do the best I could and add a little surplus possibly to keep me from worrying about the next turn of the wheel.'" (as quoted in J. Manship, Paul Manship, New York, 1989, p. 67) The commercial success Manship achieved through Indian and Pronghorn Antelope and his subsequent commission with Pratt helped solidify his artistic success. Indian and Pronghorn Antelope resides in his greater body of work as one of his finest achievements of design that blends in quintessential Manship fashion the traditions of archaic design and modernism.