Elie Nadelman

ELIE NADELMAN, 1882-1946

Nadelman began to exhibit in group shows and attracted the attention of Thadee Natanson, co-publisher of the famed La Revue Blanche. Natanson introduced Nadelman to a group of patrons and critics that included expatriate Leo Stein, Andre Gide, and Eugene Druet. Druet eventually gave Nadelman his first solo exhibition, featuring thirteen plaster sculptures and 100 of his "radically simplified drawings." His drawings "so bordered on abstraction that Nadelman would later use them to support his claim that he, not Picasso, had invented Cubism".* Another supporter of his work was New Yorker, Alfred Stieglitz, photographer and gallery owner, who promoted avant-garde European artists in his Gallery 291*. He featured Nadelman in his October 1910 issue of his publication, Camera Work.

Source: Evelyn C. Hankins, "Elie Nadelman: Sculptor of Modern Life", American Art Review, June 2003