Object number1949.5
Natatorium Undine
Date1927
Artist
Florine Stettheimer
(American, 1871-1944)
CultureAmerican
MediumOil and encaustic on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 50 3/8 x 59 13/16 in. (128 x 152 cm)
Framed: 55 1/2 x 65 3/8 x 3 1/2 in. (141 x 166.1 x 8.9 cm)
Framed: 55 1/2 x 65 3/8 x 3 1/2 in. (141 x 166.1 x 8.9 cm)
Credit LineGift of Ettie Stettheimer
On View
On viewPeriod20th c
Classification(s)
SignedSigned (at center right side): by Florine
InscribedInscribed (at center right side): Natatorium Undine 1927; (at lower left corner): Natatorium Undine
BibliographyMcBride, Henry, Florine Stettheimer (New York: MOMA distributed by Simon and Schuster, 1946), p. 55, p. 40 repr.
Tyler, Parker, Florine Stettheimer: A Life in Art (New York: Farrar, Straus and Co, 1963), p. 82 repr.
Sussman, Elizabeth, Florine Stettheimer: Still Lifes, Portraits and Pageants, 1910 to 1942 (Boston: Institute of Contemporary Art, 1980), cat. 22
Schaffner, Ingrid, "Cursive," Parkett, No. 42, 1994, p. 114-118, p. 120-121 repr.
Susman, Elizabeth, Barbara Bloemink, and Linda Nochlin, Florine Stettheimer: Manhattan Fantastica (New York: Whitney Museum, distributed by Harry Abrams, Inc, 1995)
Bloemink, Barbara, The Life and Art of Florine Stettheimer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), p.157 repr.
Mundy, James, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center: Vassar College The History and Collection (New York: Prestel Publishing, 2007), p. 106, p. 107 repr.
Udall, Sharyn, Dance and American Art (Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 2011), p. 141-142, p. 141 repr.
Carbone, Teresa A, Bonnie Costello, Randall R. Griffey, and Sarah M. Lowe, Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties (New York: Brooklyn Museum in association with Skira Rizzoli, 2011), cat. 19, p. 36-37 repr.
Mühling, Matthias, Karin Althaus and Susanne Böller, Florine Stettheimer (Munich, Lenbachhaus, 2014), cat. 83, p. 137, repr.
Veder, Robin, The Living Line: Modern Art and the Economy of Energy (Hanover, New Hampshire: Dartmouth College Press, 2015), plate 16 repr.
Bloemink, Barbara, "Florine Stettheimer: Feminist Provocateur," Hyperallergic, October 15, 2016 (online), repr.
Nochlin, Linda, "Florine Stettheimer: Rococo Subversive," Art in America, May 5, 2017, p. 67, p. 69 repr.
Bloemink, Barbara, Florine Stettheimer: A Biography (Munich: Hirmer, 2021), p. 206 repr.
Nogrady, Elizabeth and Alyx Raz, Making and Meaning: The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center / Vassar College (Munich: Hirmer, 2023), p. 142-143, repr.
ProvenanceAcquired from the artist's sister, Ettie Stettheimer.Vassar Exhibitions
Exhibition HistoryFlorine Stettheimer, MOMA, New York, October 1 - Nov 17, 1946 (not exhibited at additional venues: de Young Art Museum, San Francisco and The Arts Club, Chicago)Paintings by Florine Stettheimer, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York, February 1 - March 8, 1949
An Exhibition in Memory of Agnes Rindge Claflin 1900-1977, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York, April 30 - June 4, 1978
Florine Stettheimer: Still Lifes, Portraits and Pageants, 1910-1942, Vassar College Art Gallery, Poughkeepsie, New York, September 28 - November 9, 1980
Highlights from the Vassar College Collection, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, July 13 - September 11, 1993
Florine Stettheimer Manhattan Fantastica, Whitney Museum of Art, New York, July 13 - November 5, 1995
Twentieth Century American Women Artists, The Park Avenue Bank, New York, September 18 - November 2, 2007
Youth and Beauty: Art of the American Twenties, Brooklyn Museum, New York, October 28, 2 011 - January 22, 2012; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, February 24 - May 27 2012; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, July 1 - September 16, 2012
Florine Stettheimer, Lenbachhaus Urban Gallery, Munich, September 26 - January 4, 2015
Women Picturing Women: From Personal Spaces to Public Venture, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, New York, February 6 - June 13, 2021
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.
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Lillian Faye Barker
