Object number1949.5

Natatorium Undine

Date1927

Artist Florine Stettheimer (American, 1871-1944)

MediumOil and encaustic on canvas

DimensionsUnframed: 50 3/8 x 59 13/16 in. (128 x 152 cm)
Framed: 55 1/2 x 64 15/16 x 3 15/16 in. (141 x 165 x 10 cm)

Credit LineGift of Ettie Stettheimer

On View

On view

Period20th c

Classification(s)

Painting

Terms

SignedSigned (RM): by Florine

InscribedInscribed(CR): Natatorium Undine 1927

Vassar Exhibitions

Women Picturing Women: From Personal Spaces to Public Venture

Twentieth-Century American Women Artists from the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College

Exhibition HistoryPoughkeepsie, NY, FLLAC, Vassar College, "An Exhibition in Memory of Agnes Rindge Claflin 1900-1977," April 30 - June 4, 1978.;

"Twentieth Century American Women Artists", September 18 - November 2, 2007. (Park Avenue Bank: New York)

Brooklyn, New York, Brooklyn Museum, "Before the Fall: Art of the American Twenties," October 28, 2011 - January 22, 2012. Cat. fig.19, repr.

Dallas, Texas, Dallas Museum of Art, "Before the Fall: Art of the American Twenties," February 24 - May 27, 2012. Cat. fig.19, repr.

Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland Museum of Art, "Before the Fall: Art of the American Twenties," July 1 - September 16, 2012. Cat. fig.19, repr.

Munich, Germany, Lenbachhaus Urban Gallery, “Florine Stettheimer,” September 26, 2014 – January 4, 2015. Cat. no. 83, repr.;

Label TextFlorine Stettheimer, along with her three sisters, frequently entertained a tightly knit circle of New York avant-garde artists, writers, actors, and dancers, who provided Florine with her key subjects for her paintings. Her deliberately independent style, cake-icing paint surfaces, and palette of hot pink, shimmering gold, and vernal green, express an indulgence in the pleasures of life. An outstanding example of these qualities can be found in Natatorium Undine, one of her first large-scale paintings. Elegantly composed, this elaborate painting depicts an extravagant circus-like pool party where the artist and other participants relax and frolic near the water and on peculiar sea creatures. The title, which is inscribed twice in the painting, refers to Undine, a water nymph in ancient Teutonic mythology and other European folklore. Typical of Stettheimer's paintings from this period, this dreamlike composition takes on subtle distortions of space and perspective that recall the simplicity and naïveté of folk art.

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email loebcollections@vassar.edu