Sitting Female Figure (Lady with a Hat; Rest)

Luna Drexler

Basic information

ID: С-I-326
Author: Luna Drexler
Name: Sitting Female Figure (Lady with a Hat; Rest)
Date of creation: 1907
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire
Culture: Contemporary times
Technique: moulding polychrome
Material: plaster polychrome
Dimensions (height x width x depth, cm): 70 x 42.5 x 39

Additionally

Type: sculpture 3D
Genre: genre art
Plot: Sitting figure
Provenance: Collection of Leon Pininski

Information about author

Author: Luna Drexler
Artist's lifetime: 1882–1933
Country: Austro-Hungarian Empire, Poland, France
Biography: The artist came from the family of Ignacy Drexler, a Lviv merchant who owned a textile shop in Kapitulna Square. He was known for his artistic talent and for encouraging children's involvement in the arts. Up to the age of 17, Luna was fond of music and later became interested in painting and sculpture. In 1899, she entered the private art school of Marceli Harasimowicz in Lviv, where she studied under the portrait painter and illustrator Stanislaw Reichan (from 1899), a member of a famous Lviv family of artists and a graduate of the Vienna Academy of Arts. She improved her skills by taking lessons from Stanislaw Batowski-Kaczor and the sculptor Antoni Popiel. At the same time, the future artist attended the public drawing and modelling studio of the Lviv Art and Industrial School. She improved her skills at the Adrian Baraniecki Higher Women's Courses in Krakow for some time. In 1907, Luna Drexler studied in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière under Jean-Antoine Injalbert and the famous sculptor Antoine Bourdelle. She was fascinated by the work of Auguste Rodin, whose symbolic Impressionist style is reflected in a number of her works. In 1908, the artist returned to Lviv and took over the former studio of the Lviv sculptor Tadeusz Baracz, who had died in 1905. In the same year, the first personal exhibition of Luna Drexler was held in the exhibition hall of the Society of Friends of Fine Arts (Towarzystwo przyjaćół sztuk Pięknych), which included more than twenty works.
The collection of European artistic experience continued in 1909: in Paris under Antoine Bourdelle, in Rome – at the Medici Academy, and from 1910 – at the Munich Academy of Fine Arts. The ideological foundations of Luna Drexler's work were formed by her acquaintance with the philosopher, writer, architect and sculptor Rudolf Steiner, who founded the Anthroposophical Society in Dornach (Switzerland). During her stay abroad, the artist was involved in the exhibition life of Eastern Galicia. Between 1911 and 1914, she collaborated with Oleksandr Levytskyi's faience factory in the village of Patsykiv near Stanislav (now Pidlissia, Ivano-Frankivsk region). In 1917, the artist returned to Lviv and settled first in house No. 30 on St. Sofiia Street (now - 114 Franko Street), then at 14 Parkova Street (1910, architect Ivan Levynskyi), where she lived until the end of her life. The creative heritage of Luna Drexler consists of more than 200 sculptures and several dozen paintings. Until the early 1910s, her creative work was dominated by the inspirations of Impressionism, Symbolism, and Secession. Later, she was inspired by the cultures of ancient Egypt and Assyria and ancient Greek and medieval French sculptures, which led to an archaic stylisation. Influenced by the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, the ideological core of the artist's figurative and plastic explorations was the revelation of human spiritual principles through artistic means. In line with the fine arts of the early twentieth century, Luna Drexler sought to integrate painterly means of artistic expression into sculpture, which is confirmed by the texture of the surfaces, polychrome colouring, and soft modelling of forms. The artist's painting legacy is made up of landscapes and portraits. It is known that the artist was also interested in graphic art, significantly etching. Drexler's establishment in the socio-cultural space of the twentieth century is confirmed by her active public activity, participation in the founding of the Union of Polish Artists, membership in the Sculpture Association, as well as membership in the Board of the Union of Polish Artists and the Lviv City Council for the Arts.
Luna Drexler died in Lviv at age 51 and was buried in the Lychakiv cemetery. For the construction of the artist's tombstone, one of the reliefs of her 1927 work "Dedication" (a flying angel, reproduced with a cross and seven roses in his hands) was used, which was cast in bronze and installed on the grave in a black marble frame. A posthumous exhibition of Luna Amalia Drexler's work was held in May–July 1937, featuring 189 works, including 126 sculptures and 63 oil and watercolour paintings.

Object description

"Sitting Female Figure" belongs to the series of works by L.A. Drexler from 1907–1910 ("Marusia", 1906-1907; "Girl with a Doll on Her Lap", 1907; "Sitting Woman", 1908; "Lady with a Fox Fur", 1910), in which Secessionist ornamentation is combined with narrative, architecture and Impressionist free modelling of forms. The work was exhibited at the Lviv Society of Fine Arts exhibition in February – June 1907 and received favourable reviews from art critics, testifying to the young artist's professional maturity and outstanding artistic talent. In particular, the essay by the Lviv art critic, philosopher and psychologist Wladyslaw Witwicki, published in the magazine "Słowo Polskie", noted that "the composition is masterfully executed, with boldly outlined forms and a perfect silhouette" and that it was one of the most successful sculptures presented at the Salon. The peculiarity of the figurative solution of the work is the skilful reproduction of an instantaneous psychological state through a play of exquisite artistic forms. Peace of mind and dreamy thoughts are reflected in the Secessionist contours of the torso, the soft lines of the arms, and the graceful inclination of the beautiful head. Decorative expressiveness is accentuated by the S-shaped silhouette dress of the first decade of the twentieth century, a whimsical hat, gathered sleeves, and a wavy hem connected by a vertical fur boa. The echo of the refined and original culture of Secessionist Lviv is perceived as a noble elegance and subtle harmony of plastic, line, and texture inherent to the artist. Impressionistic lightness, light and air are imbued with the bubbly texture, analogous to the impressionistic separate shimmering stroke. The delicate, smooth surfaces of the hands, chest and face are full of sensuality and contrast with the active plasticity of the costume. The impressionistic genesis of the artistic imagery is evidenced by the mood and plastic resonances with the paintings of Pierre-Auguste Renoir ('"Promenade", 1870; "By the Seashore", 1883) and Berthe Morisot. The picture's dynamic is due to the proportions of the shoulders, graceful leg, and arms diagonals. The shades of gold, olive and ochre create a festive atmosphere. The work is characterised by its association with the context of an event: tranquillity amidst the noise of a ball or a theatre foyer.

Inscriptions

Signed and dated on the base: "L. DREXLERÓWNA 07"; on the back right: "ІІ / 45".

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery