Richmond Barthé modeled Boxer from memory, inspired by the famed Cuban featherweight Eligio Sardiñas Montalvo, better known as “Kid Chocolate”—who, Barthé said, “moved like a ballet dancer.” Barthé, a Black sculptor who studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, frequently explored the expressive potential of the body’s form, pose, and movement. Here, the artist conveyed the boxer’s immense strength and agility with lyricism and grace.
Date
Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.
Signed verso, on base top, behind proper right foot, etched: "BARTHÉ".
Dimensions
With base: 47.6 × 30.9 × 17.6 cm (18 3/4 × 12 3/16 × 6 15/16 in.)
Credit Line
Simeon B. Williams Fund
Reference Number
1948.79
Extended information about this artwork
International Print Society, Sculpture by Richmond Barthé, exh. brochure (New York: International Print Society, 1945), cat. 8 (listed, not ill.).
Samella Lewis, Two Sculptors; Two Eras: Richmond Barthé, Richard Hunt, exh. cat. (Los Angeles: Landau/Travelling Exhibitions, 1992), 3 (ill.).
Margaret Rose Vendryes, Expression and Repression of Identity: Race, Religion, and Sexuality in the Art of American Sculptor Richmond Barthé (PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1997), 379–87 (ill.).
Susan F. Rossen et al., “African Americans in Art: Selections from the Art Institute of Chicago,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 24, 2 (1999): 141, 184, 200–201, no. 11 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter, et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955 (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), 285-86, cat. 139 (ill.).
Jordana Moore Saggese, Reading Basquiat: Exploring Ambivalence in American Art, (University of California Press, 2014) (ill.).
New York, International Print Society, Sculpture by Richmond Barthé, Mar. 26–Apr. 14, 1945, brochure.
Los Angeles, Landau/Travelling Exhibitions, Two Sculptors, Two Eras: Richmond Barthé, Richard Hunt, cat.; Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, June 16–Aug. 9, 1992; Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution, Anacostia Museum, Dec. 20, 1992–Feb. 28, 1993; Hampton, VA, Hampton University Museum, Apr. 1–May 14, 1993; Chattanooga, TN, Hunter Museum of Art, Dec. 5, 1993–Jan. 30, 1994, Dallas, African American Museum, Feb. 15–Apr. 15, 1994; Lubbock, TX, Museum of Texas Tech., c. May 1–Aug. 14, 1994; New Orleans Museum of Art, Sept. 1–Oct. 31, 1994; Odessa, TX, Art Institute of the Permian Basin, no dates; Columbus, OH, King Arts Complex, no dates; Monroe, LA, Masur Museum of Art, c. Jan. 1–c. Feb. 28, 1995.
Art Institute of Chicago, A Century of Collecting: African American Art in the Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 15–May 18, 2003, no cat.
Frank Breckenridge, Chicago, by June 4, 1948 [incoming permanent receipt R9285, June 4, 1948; copy in curatorial object file]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1948.
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