Vintage Modern Bronze Sculpture Dog Portrait Saluki FEBO Madeleine Fish Park

Description

This well cast and lovingly sculpted early to middle 1900's figure of a Saluki female measures an impressive 13 7/8" tall x 17" long x 4" wide on its 3/4" x 14 1/2" x 4 3/4" porto nero marble base and is attributed to the sculptor Madeleine Fish Park (1891-1960) studied animal sculpture with A. Phimister Proctor and in
the late 1940s, she worked at Hunt's Circus and traveled to India to purchase wild animals for Charles Hunt, keeping one of the panthers she obtained for herself.
She became a regular exhibitor at the National Academy of Design and the National Sculpture Society, and in the 1930s was represented by the Argent Galleries of New York. She was included in the 1940 Whitney Museum National Sculpture Society Exhibition and in 1944 had a one-person exhibition at the J.B. Speed Memorial Museum.
Exhibitions:
Animal Sculptures by Madeleine Park
, Studio Guild, New York, October 30-November 11, 1939; possibly
125th Annual Exhibition of the National Academy of Design
, New York, 1950, as
Smooth-Haired Saluki from Iran
,
Madeleine Park Retrospective Exhibition
, James R. Bakker Gallery, Boston, June 16-30, 2000.
N.B. This work depicts the smooth-haired Sicilian saluki belonging to the Contessa Jane Gradenigo, which the artist modeled in Rome in 1939. It is believed that the work is unsigned because it was conceived without a bronze base, where the artist would traditionally have signed. While it does not bear a foundry mark, the artist's sculptures were usually cast by the Gorham foundry. (re: James R. Bakker).