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(FEMALE NUDE, SEATED)
circa 1922-3
Pencil on light brown paper
8 1/4 x 5 in.
21 x 12.6 cm.
Provenance:
DAVID MASON BOOKS, TORONTO (1970)
GARY MICHAEL DAULT
References:
MILTON A. COHEN, POET AND PAINTER
THE AESTHETICS OF E.E. CUMMNGS'S EARLY WORK,
WAYNE STATE U.P., 1987
Comment:
E.E. Cummings considered himself as much a painter as poet, they being "twin obsessions" . Living in Paris in the 1920s, he was profoundly influenced by Picasso and the Cubists as this sheet evidences. None of his sketches of this period are inscribed. The largest holdings of Cummings' work are in The Houghton Library, Harvard University and The Harry Ransom Humanities Research Centre, University of Texas, at Austin. Closely associated material will be found illustrated in Poet and Painter on pages 42, 52 & 167.
In a superb selection of the poetry edited by Richard Kostelanetz "Another E.E. Cummings "(Liverlight, N.Y. 1998) it is noted that the paintings and drawings on which he worked most of his daytimes have never been sastisfactorily exhibited or completely examined. The poem as laid out on page 132, #50 seems to speak to the aesthetic of this pencil sketch:
who(at
her nons-
elf
's unself too
-thf-
ully lee
-r-
ing)can this plati
-num fl-
oozey
begin to(a
-lm-
ost)imagi
-n-
e she is