Lectures

Sculptor Paul Troubetzkoy and William A. Clark: the Cultural Elite in Late-1910s Los Angeles

Date/Time
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
4:00 pm

Location
William Andrews Clark Memorial Library
2520 Cimarron Street

Clark Quarterly Lecture

—Anne-Lise Desmas, Acting Department Head, Sculpture and Decorative Arts, J. Paul Getty Museum

clarkquarterlyThis richly illustrated lecture examines the encounter between William A. Clark Jr. and autodidact sculptor Paul Troubetzkoy (1866–1938), during Troubetskoy’s sojourn in Los Angeles in the years 1918 to 1920. Overlooked bronze statuettes, manuscripts, books, and photographs from the Clark Library illustrate the intertwined life and passions of important key figures of the art, music, and literary circles of the time, such as the internationally famous Russian dancer Anna Pavlova, Walter Henry Rothwell, the first conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra (founded by Clark in 1919), and the American novelist Amélie Rives, Troubetskoy’s sister-in-law and a dear friend of Oscar Wilde.

Acting Head of the Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Anne-Lise Desmas received her Diplôme de recherche from the École du Louvre and her Ph.D. in art history from Paris-IV Sorbonne. Her research specialization is early modern sculpture in France and Italy, and she has published extensively in this field. At the Getty she contributed to the exhibition and the catalog Bernini and the Birth of Baroque Portrait Sculpture and co-curated the exhibitions, “Cast in Bronze” and “Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Sculpture.”