Paul Howard Manship

(1885-1966) and Barry Faulkner (1881-1966)

Important Tester Panel 73 1/4 x 50 3/4 in. (186.1 x 128.9 cm.)

Footnotes

Provenance
Estate of the artist.
Private collection, Massachusetts, acquired from the above.
Sale, Bonhams, New York, December 14, 2022, lot 26, sold by the above.
Acquired by the present owner at the above sale.

Literature
J. Manship, Paul Manship, New York, 1989, pp. 73, 215, pl. 63, illustrated.
B. Mueller, "Paul Manship and Barry Faulkner: Eternal Friendship Forged in the Eternal City," Coming Home! A Retrospective Exhibit of Parrish, Manship, Faulkner and Zorach, exhibition catalogue, Vermont, 2006, p. 21.

The present tester panel is an exceptional and unique example of Paul Manship and Barry Faulkner's best design and was created at a time when Manship was finalizing his designs for the John Pierpont Morgan Memorial (1915-20, obj. no. 20.265) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Paul Manship and Isabel (née Mcllwaine) Manship (1883-1974) wed on New Year's Day, 1913 and the couple's first daughter, Pauline (1913-1988), was born at the end of that same year. In 1915, The Manships moved the family into 42 Washington Mews in Downtown New York shortly after its renovation into artist's studios and residences and Manship maintained a studio at number 44.

At that time Washington Mews was a thriving creative and artistic community, and the Manships hosted parties and entertained Gertrude (née Vanderbilt) Whitney (1875-1942), Charlie Chaplin (1899-1977), and Gaston Lachaise (1882-1935) among others. The desire for Manship to incorporate his art into his living space is shown in the few extant pieces of furniture Manship designed, including an oak liquor cabinet from 1918 designed by Manship, made by Luigi D'Olivio, and carved by Gaston Lachaise, now in the collection of Two Red Roses, St Petersburg, FL, as well as the bronze balcony rails, painted interior elements, and more installed in his later home on 319 East 72nd Street, New York (illustrated in Town & Country, vol. 81, 1927).

The design of the present tester panel is composed, perhaps intentionally, in a fashion similar to a paneled door and was designed to be installed as a ceiling of an existing four-post or tester bed. It is composed of six rectangular paintings, the four larger ones depicting the Four Seasons and the two smaller central paintings depicting Dawn and Night, all designed by Manship and painted by Faulkner. The two central paintings, one depicting a nude Olympian male forcefully pushing away the clouds to reveal the sun, and the other a beautiful female shrouded by night in a starry sky, predate Day and Evening, two of the four sculptures Manship created for the 1939 New York World's Fair. The finely executed gilded borders by Manship include numerous zodiac symbols, including his much-loved animals - a crab, bull, scorpion, fish, lion and others; as well as the mythological and archaic figures for which Manship is also well known, and numerous gilded roundels indicating Roman virtues.

At the time of the panel's creation, Manship was finalizing his designs for the Morgan Memorial that was installed in 1920 at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The arrangement of figural scenes within ornate scrolling borders is strikingly similar in composition to the memorial, and it may be that in creating this panel scheme Manship was exploring thoughts of his own legacy and family, as he was carving those figural attributes and virtues symbolic of the accomplishments of the great benefactor Morgan.

Manship first met Faulkner in 1909 when they were both studying at the American Academy in Rome. The friendship and career collaboration between them was close and long-lasting. Faulkner travelled with the Manships during trips to Italy in 1914, curtailed by the onset of the Great War, and he later travelled with Paul to France and then Greece and the Near East. Later Faulkner lived in a studio apartment above the Manships on 72nd Street. They worked on several common projects throughout their careers, including the memorial to fallen Academy fellows Harry Thrasher and Walter Ward at the American Academy in Rome, the fresco for which is considered some of Faulkner's finest work. Faulkner's execution of Manship's designs for such an intimate space in Manship's home further reveals the strength and closeness of their relationship, as well as the practical necessity, owing to Manship's color blindness, of Manship using a painter to execute these scenes. The present work provides important tangible insight into the creative practice, artistic vision and personal life of one of America's most famous twentieth-century sculptors.