[Rarebooks] fs: Fashion Designer turned Sculptor -Nat Smolin

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

Gauthier, Maximilien.  NAT SMOLIN.

Paris; Editions Le Triangle: 1931. An example from the DeLuxe edition of 50 
copies (of the English printing) printed on velin d'Arches paper with an 
original signed pencil portrait by the artist.

Nat Smolin [1890-1950] was born in New York on the Fourth of July, the son 
of Russian and Polish immigrants. He was expected to take over the family 
millinery business, and he did in fact give that career a start in New 
York, but art called and he took time, while in Europe on business, to tour 
Europe's great museums.

As his friend, the Parisian art critic Maximilien Gauthier, speculates in 
the prefatory essay in this book, working with fabrics and learning how 
they drape and shape on the human body probably gave Smolin a great leg up 
on his later sculpting career -or perhaps his natural eye for form and 
shape helped him be a successful designer. Perhaps both. But the "House of 
Smolin" was never to be, for in 1920 his father mysteriously disappeared 
while traveling in Europe and Nat packed up and moved to Paris to devote 
his full time to art.

Once there he drew and sculpted, often working on five figures at once. He 
believed that the perfect studio had two rooms, one for observing the model 
and one for sculpting, and he himself would often turn his back on a model 
to work from memory. "Nat Smolin does not permit himself the caprices of 
inspiration" Gauthier remarks concerning Smolin's penchant for long, 
regular hours in the studio, but while he adopted a workmanlike approach to 
his art, he also lived by a code of personal artistic freedom that he would 
not surrender to current fashion. "Climb the mountains, even at the risk of 
breaking one's neck, but climb" he wrote. "Success and glory frighten him" 
Gauthier adds, "He fears to become their prisoner, he fears being obliged 
to conform to the appearance that the public might choose for him".

Probably just as well that he gave up fashion design.

Goethe was among his favorites, and Plate 32 in this volume reproduces a 
"patinated plaster" head in triangle (there is no better way to describe 
it) monument of Goethe in the artist's studio that was then shipped to Yale 
where it became part of the Speck Collection. This volume consists of 32 
plates illustrating a range of the artist's work, prefaced by an extended 
appreciation and commentary by Gauthier, who is willing to mention it when 
he does not agree with a direction in which  several of Smolin's works went.

An altogether interesting study of the life and work of an American 
expatriate artist working in the decadent and exuberant milieu that was 
Paris between the wars.

Card covers. 9"x11.5", 23 pages plus 32 b/w plates; paper covered boards. A 
few small tears in the paper covers along the seams; a little soil and 
wear. Inscribed by Nat Smolin to a friend on the front free endpaper. With 
an original pencil portrait by Smolin of a young woman's head with 
fashionably bobbed hair, laid-in loose.  [08455]  $250.00



JOSLIN HALL RARE BOOKS, ABAA
Fine books of the 16th-20th centuries
on the decorative and fine arts & design

Post Office Box 239
Northampton, Massachusetts 01060 USA
telephone (413) 247-5080

--> Subscribe to our free email News List and get special
      discounts and offers on selected books!
<http://joslinhall.com/mailman/listinfo/jhrbnews_joslinhall.com>

--> See our new "Just Catalogued" pages for December-
<http://www.joslinhall.com/justcat.htm>

--> Our full-service website features 86 separate subject
      categories, and has full search capabilities.
<http://www.joslinhall.com>

  ~~

TERMS:
All payments must be in U.S. funds and negotiable through a U.S. bank; We 
accept checks, money orders, American Express, Visa and Mastercard. Books 
may be reserved pending payment; Institutions may be billed; Standard 
courtesies to institutions and the trade; Postage charges are $5.00 for the 
first book, and $1.50 for each additional book. Shipments outside the U.S. 
will be billed at cost. We accept returns if we are notified within ten 
days of your receipt of the books-please ask for full instructions and 
terms. Massachusetts residents must add 5% state sales tax.

As members of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America we are 
committed to upholding high professional standards and making sure your 
bookbuying experience is enjoyable.