66
●
RICHMOND BARTHÉ (1909 - 1989)
Head of a Dancer (Harald Kreutzberg)
.
Cast bronze, with a brown patina, mounted on a white marble base, 1937. Approximately 311 mm;
12
1
/
4
inches high (not including the base). A later casting, from an edition of 25. Signed, inscribed
“xxx” and number stamped “25” along the upper edge, verso.
Provenance: private collection,Washington, DC.
This contemplative but powerful head by Richmond Barthé is his well known portrait of the Czech-
born German dancer Harald Krueutzberg (1902 - 1968). Kreutzberg is an important figure in both
German ballet and modern dance whom Richmond Barthé befriended when he performed in New
York in the 1930s. Barthé made several sculptures of the expressive dancer - both bust and figures.
Barthé himself had studied Martha Graham dance techniques in an effort to more fully understand
the movement and form of dancing figures.
A plaster cast of this head was exhibited and illustrated in the 1974 Anacostia Museum catalogue
The Barnett-Aden Collection
. A similar bronze casting, the same size as this head, is illustrated in the
1995
The Catalogue of the Barnett-Aden Collection
and dated circa 1973. Other bronze casts of this
head are in the collections of the National Portrait Gallery, the David C. Driskell Collection, the
Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art, the Bernard and Shirley Kinsey Collection
and the Savannah College of Art and Design Museum. Kinard p. 40; Auzenne, p. 42.
[15,000/25,000]
