Page 313 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Studies: human

model of the larger piece (nos. 43 and 142 bear the same
relationship to each other).

Two pieces are mildly pornographic, in the sense described
above. The first, no. 93, is in the same high-relief triangular-
niche format as nos. 92, 95 and 160. That is indeed the perfect
shape for a cutaway view of a square shower stall, occupied in
this case by a woman either washing her hair or striking a
cheesecake pose. Her back is to the viewer; by placing the
invisible shower-head on the inside, AR created a reason to
expose his bathing beauty’s charms with maximum modesty.
The contours of her rounded form are repeated in the curved
edges and corners of the niche. Odd notes, however, are
sounded by the figure’s disproportionately short limbs and
floor-to-ceiling height, giving the sculpture an Alice-in-
Wonderland sense of claustrophobic crowding. The enigmatic
epigraph fails to offset the over-all voyeuristic effect of the
piece.

Like other “attractive” females AR sculpted (nos. 16 and 63, as
well as 93), no. 150 has a hand caressing long hair falling over
one shoulder; the frequency of such gestures suggests a
convention of seductiveness—not totally out of vogue now,
but dated enough to appear quaint. The stance of the nude is
odd, the vector of AR’s tendency to rigid axiality matched
against his desire to cast his figure in a feminine S-curve. He
put one of her legs forward, but did not alter the strict
perpendicularity of her spine and hip; the resultant distorted
posture diminishes the aesthetic pleasures of the work, as do
the elongated arms. She holds a hand mirror at her side, and is
smiling; the sculpture is clearly meant to be alluring, its subject
frankly aware of her charms.

Finally, no. 19: a slim female figure reposes supine, eyes closed,
an open book in one hand covering her pelvis. The hammock,
shaped like a boat, seems to float off into the deep but still
waters of imagination, propelled by the contents of the
probably romantic novel. AR has synthesized this figure from
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