PAUL MANSHIP | INDIAN HUNTER

Private collection (acquired circa 1980s)

Gifted from the above to the present owner

Paul Vitry, Paul Manship, Sculpteur Americain, 1927, p. 38, pls. 31-32, illustration of another example

A.E. Gardner, American Sculpture: A Catalogue of the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 1965, p. 151, no. 48.149.28, illustration of another example

John Manship, "Paul Manship: A Biographical Sketch," Paul Manship: Changing Taste in America, Saint Paul 1985, illustration of another example p. 136

Harry Rand, Paul Manship, Washington, D.C. 1989, pp. 36, 40, illustration of another example

John Manship, Paul Manship, New York 1989, pp. 55, 67

J. Conner and J. Rosenkranz, Rediscoveries in American Sculpture: Studio Works, 1893-1939, Austin 1989, pp. 135, 138-39, illustration of another example

Susan Rather, Archaism, Modernism, and the Art of Paul Manship, Austin 1993, illustration of another example p. 105

Gerald Peters, Paul Manship and His Circle, New York 2006, illustration of another example p. 14

Recognized as an emergent talent at the age of 23, Paul Manship was awarded a three year fellowship at the American Academy in Rome in 1909. While there, he developed an appreciation for Archaic Greek Art, defined by its naturalistic style, which reflected influences from Egypt and India. Drawing on this tradition, Manship translated the Greek aesthetic into a unique vision that bridges the gap between the traditional and modern. The artist's primary concern lay in the purity of form, where each element was considered and perfected to achieve a manifestation that was distinctly naturalistic, yet simplified and contemporary. 

Modeled and cast in 1914, Indian Hunter is a beautiful example of Manship's talent of rendering human form in a fashion that is simultaneously classical and modern. Manship created Indian Hunter as a companion piece to Pronghorn Antelope and initially designed the two sculptures as a pair for two pedestals that flanked the mantelpiece in his New York apartment. Indian Hunter and Pronghorn Antelope depict Manship’s unique interpretation of the third labor (The Cerynian Hind) of Herakles, or Hercules, as told through Greek mythology. He emphasizes the power of the flowing line both with the figure, recast as a Native American, and the animal, recast as an antelope. Small-scale statuettes such as these were popular for interior decoration, and the pair became one of Manship's most commercial designs. 

Indian Hunter and Pronghorn Antelope were cast in an edition of fifteen. At least eleven of the editions are in museum collections, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago Illinois, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.