Bruce’s new bronze a major addition to collection [Connecticut Post, Bridgeport]

Aug. 28--He may be less than 2 feet tall, but his reach is nearly immeasurable.

"Man Walking (Portrait of Lincoln Kirstein)," by French/American artist Gaston Lachaise, has found a new home in Greenwich. The Bruce Museum recently acquired the bronze sculpture, helping it to significantly raise the value of its collection.

"This is the best piece of modern sculpture we have," said Peter Sutton, the museum's executive director.

Beyond the ability to showcase the talent of one of modern sculpture's pioneers, the statue offers the museum a chance to celebrate the life and times of a man who was a towering 20th-century figure in American arts.

A great patron of the arts, Kirstein not only supported and promoted visual artists, such as Lachaise and his brother-in-law, Paul Cadmus, but became best known for his pivotal role in the creation and stewardship of the New York City Ballet, which he established with fellow Harvard University alum and philanthropist Edward Warburg and Russian dancer and choreographer George Balanchine.

"Lincoln Kirstein was a remarkable man," Sutton said.

Kirstein (1907-1996) was born in Rochester, N.Y., but grew up in Boston, where his father was a chief executive for Filene's department store. By the time Kirstein was a student at Harvard, he was already a champion for the arts, having launched a literary magazine and established the Harvard Society for Contemporary Art with Warburg and another classmate, John Walker III, who later became the director of the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Many consider the society a precursor to New York City's Museum of Modern Art, where Kirstein organized a retrospective of Lachaise's work in 1935.

"With its recent acquisition of Lachaise's bronze, an idealized portrait of Lincoln Kirstein, the Bruce Museum has ingratiated its collection with a prized image of one of America's leading art patrons, impresarios and taste-makers," noted Philip Eliasoph, professor of art history at Fairfield University, as well as the author of "Paul Cadmus: Yesterday & Today," in a recent statement.

"Irascible in temperament, gifted in his literary powers and uncompromising in his defense of classical art, Kirstein's legacy was incalculable," Eliaspoh added. "At the height of modernist abstraction, he courageously collected and promoted academic and magic realists artists as a patron of brother-in-law Paul Cadmus, George Tooker, Andrew Wyeth, Jared French, Robert Vickrey and Colleen Browning."

Eliasoph recalled many visits to Kirstein's Weston property 30 years ago, where, as a graduate student, he would meet with Cadmus (who lived on the estate) to work on the artist's biography. Eliasoph said it was not unusual to find this heavily wooded site off Newtown Turnpike serving as a respite for "A-list ballet, literary and art world luminaries."

Kirstein, who maintained the Weston property for more than 40 years, did more than just live part of the time in the Nutmeg State. He also lent his financial support to such projects as the American Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford.

It is there, in the 1970s, that Sutton met Kirstein while working one summer cataloguing Shakespeare-inspired artwork. Sutton was in graduate school at Yale at the time.

He said Kirstein could be an imposing man.

"He scared me to death," said Sutton, laughing.

And Connecticut was where Balanchine's and Kirstein's dream of a new ballet academy was first realized, since the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford served as the site of the first public performance of the company in 1934.

The sculpture, which appears to be inspired by the lithe lines of a dancer, is one of the very first pieces of artwork that greets a visitor. Seemingly gazing out the double doors, the sculpted Kirstein appears to be striding, his left arm out in greeting, his right foot taking the next step forward. The statue, which measures 21 inches high, rests atop a black base, which sits on a white pedestal topped by a clear plastic cover.

The museum acquired the piece for $146,500 during an auction by collector and dealer Bernard Goldberg on May 20 at Christie's, according to the auction house's website. The Lachaise sculpture is one of only two cast. The other is owned by the Whitney Museum of American Art.

The museum's collection, which grows annually through donations and acquisitions, as well as the museum itself, are owned by the town, Sutton said. Private contributions build acquisition funds and private collectors, many of whom are on the museum's board of trustees and collections committee, provide their expertise when it comes to the purchases.

Sutton said the acquisition of the Lachaise sculpture represents a great opportunity to continue the museum's mission to educate the public about the evolution of Western art.

This "beautifully crafted piece," he said, helps to provide a point on the visual timeline as to what artists had done before and how modern sculpture has since evolved. "It is very modern in its gracefulness. There is a wonderful smoothness on the surface."

Sutton said the pose, which resembles that of a dancer taking his first step on stage, was inspired by Kirstein's affinity for dance, as well as by a small Egyptian statuette that is part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's collection. It is the god Amun, a patron to the pharaohs and king to the gods of Egypt, that Lachaise and Kirstein had espied during a trip to the Met.

As Sutton noted in a recent essay: "The pose with single leg extended is familiar to us from many archaic Egyptian and Greek sculptures; it represents the first revolutionary step that breaks with the columnar captivity of stone, freeing the image to move in space."

The Bruce Museum is located at One Museum Drive, Greenwich. For more information about the statue, hours, admissions or other exhibits, visit brucemuseum.org or call 203-869-0376.

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