Collection of six pencil drawings, unsigned and undated, various sizes (largest 7 x 8.5 inches; 18 x 22 cm). In studio mounts inscribed on the verso "Nadelman" and "Frederick Maddox." Provenance: Lincoln Kirstein to Frederick Maddox. With general overall toning, else in fine condition. Priced as a group or individually, as follows:

1. Two figures in bonnets and skirts. 9 x 7.75 inches. Inscribed on the mount verso by Maddox "Nadelman." $4500.00
2. Figure in dress with exposed shoulder. 5 x 7.5 inches. Inscribed on the mount verso by Maddox "Nadelman" and "F. Maddox / 12 Norfield Road / Weston, CT...." $3500.00
3. Two figures in elaborate gowns with feathers. 4.5 x 7.5 inches. Inscribed on the mount verso by Maddox "Nadelman" and "F. Maddox / 12 Norfield Road / Weston, CT...." $3500.00
4. Toilette (mirror and sink). 4.75 x 8.5 inches. Inscribed on the mount verso by Maddox "Study (sketch) by Nadelman" $2000.00
5. Two figures in hats. On verso of excised page from Little Walks in London (Spottiswoode & Co., 1875). 7.5 x 9 inches. Inscribed on the mount verso by Maddox "Nadelman" and "F. Maddox / 12 Norfield Road / Weston, CT...." $3500
6. Three figures in hats, with flowers. 9 x 7.75 inches. Inscribed on the mount verso by Maddox "Nadelman" and "F. Maddox / 12 Norfield Road / Weston, CT...." $3500

These lively and idiosyncratic drawings are undated but appear to be very late works by the artist. The free, even somewhat wild hand, as well as the exposed shoulders of some of the female figures suggest a date of the mid-late 1930s. In any event, Nadelman's longstanding interest in costume, fabric drapery, fashion elements like feathers or flowers, as well as the energy of performance or theatricality, is clearly visible. Works of his like Concert Singer (1918-19) referencing Leonetto Capiello's Yvette Guilbert (1899) or his Dancer (1920-22), referencing Georges Seurat's Le chacut (1890), testify to such lifelong preoccupations even while being in very different styles. 

Known primarily for his modernist sculptures of female heads and nudes, Nadelman was a Polish born artist who spent the last decades of his life in the Riverdale neighborhood of the Bronx. His works display his interest in classical sculpture and European Folk Art, combined with the Cubist influences he gained through his relationships with avant-garde artists like Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, whom he met while living in Paris from 1904 to 1914.  There he settled into the Polish art colony of Montparnasse.

Nadelman began to exhibit in group shows and met Leo Stein, Andre Gide, and Eugene Druet. In 1909, Druet gave Nadelman his first solo exhibition, featuring thirteen plaster sculptures and 100 of his “radically simplified drawings.” The show electrified the Parisian artistic community. Leo Stein, the brother of Gertrude Stein, bought two-thirds of the drawings. His drawings “so bordered on abstraction that he would later use them to support his claim that he, not Picasso, had invented cubism (Hankins).” Another supporter of his work was Alfred Stieglitz who featured Nadelman in his October 1910 issue of Camera Work. The following year, Nadelman had a one-person show at the William B. Paterson Gallery in London. This show included ten female heads chiseled in marble and was purchased in its entirety by Helena Rubenstein.

Nadelman is represented in the collections of most major museums in the United States, including the National Gallery of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Amon Carter Museum, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Baltimore Museum of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Wadsworth Atheneum, and many others.  New York’s Lincoln Center is home to 24-foot marble versions of Nadelman’s papier-mâché sculptures, Two Circus Women and Two Circus Women (Standing and Seated) from around 1930.