Robert Laurent American (1890-1970) Seated Female Nude, 1948 terra cotta sculpture signed and dated to top of base. Provenance: From a private collector, Indianapolis. From the archives of AskArt: A sculptor, frame maker and educator, Robert Laurent came to New York City in 1901 from France, having been brought over from his home at Concarneau by artist Hamilton Field who painting in the area became aware of the special talent of Robert. Field also brought Robert's parents over, and employed them as caretakers in New York and later in Ogunquit, Maine. Under the sponsorship of Field, Robert returned to Paris in 1905 as an apprentice to a dealer in Japanese prints. He also became much aware of emerging modernist art styles, and in Italy studied drawing and wood carving. As a young boy in Brittany, Robert had been much fascinated by Celtic sculpture found in granite calvaries at crossroads in his native land. He felt it sprang from the "soul of the a people" (Tragard 27) and not from preconceived, self-imposed style. Returning to New York in 1910, he began carving frames for his artist friends including John LaFarge, Leon Kroll, Robert Henri, and Childe Hassam. The Philadelphia collector, Albert Barnes, commissioned many frames from him for the Barnes Collection. Also, combining his feelings for Celtic sculpture with modern art trends, he "became known through the United States for his direct and stylized carving of wood and stone."(Tragard 28) During this early part of the 20th century, he was the only sculptor in New York carving directly into wood. In the 1920s, he began working with alabaster. and also did work in aluminum and bronze. For the first mezzanine of Radio City Music Hall at Rockefeller Center, he did three nude female sculptures, each posing with a goose whose bill was uplifted looking into the raised palm of each figure. The scene was intensified by a background of mirrors that made clear the back side of the women. Although graceful and realistic in style and seemingly bucolic in theme with a woman having a quiet, tender moment enjoying the company of a goose, the figure group was highly controversial and considered naughty by some who perceived that the position of the goose bills made the birds too 'familiar' with the women. In 1911, with his formal education completed thanks to ongoing encouragement and financial help of Hamilton Field, Robert and Field built a studio at Perkins Cove in Ogunquit, Maine, and established the Summer School of Graphic Arts, which flourished for the next ten years. Laurent taught sculpture and wood carving, and Field gave classes in painting, including from life. Robert Laurent also became a major collector of Folk Art, and had such an extensive collection that it became responsible for generating national interest in that subject. From 1923 to 1942, he was a teacher at the Art Students League in New York, and from 1942 to 1959, he taught at Indiana University in Bloomington. Sources: Louise Tragard, Patricia Hart and W.L. Copithorne, A Century of Color, 1886-1968 Peter Hastings Falk, Editor, Who Was Who in American Art Christine Roussel, The Guide to the Art of Rockefeller Center 10"H x 11"W x 5 1/4"D