Page 305 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Studies: human

146 Study of a hand
Stone
6.5” long x 3” wide

72 Study of a hand *
Wood
5.5” x 2.5”

147 Study of a hand and wrist
Wood
9” x 2.5”

AR’s granddaughter Judith clearly remembers modeling for
these hands (see her reminiscences); she also is able to date
these works to 1953, during a period in which he was evidently
experimenting and improving his technique. It is probably the
only time AR worked from a live model. He did the stone
piece first, and if he compared it to the others in wood, the
limitations of stone must have been quite apparent to him: the
result is far from naturalistic; it is flat and poorly-detailed, the
thumb and fingers sticking out together and straight.

By contrast, the studies in wood are amazingly lifelike. The
palm and fingers are bent in a natural pose, the incised detail
neither too much nor too little to produce the desired effect: a
sensitive gesture. On an almost life-size scale, AR
demonstrated here the extent of his carving skill in reproducing
a natural object. Because he never carved a human figure over
two feet tall, one is left to wonder what he could have
accomplished given a totem-pole-size log and a patiently-
posing model. Without formal training and beginning serious
production after the age of seventy, he nevertheless possessed
the observant eye and clever hands of a talented artist.
Although his work exhibits the inevitable limitations of self-
education, the distortions of physiognomy marking many of his
pieces are neither the errors of ignorance nor the studied

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