International studio (51.1913/1914)

A Sculptor from St. Louis

1912

With the acceptance into the
Salon of La Petite Nymphe de la Riviere
de Nohain, by Caroline Everett Risque, the pride
of St. Louis in another of her artists has been jus-
tified. The Petite Nymphe, a life-size sculpt of an
awkward girl-child holding a wriggling fish, at
which she is looking, half-mischievous, half-fascin-
ated, is a fine example of truth, even at the ex-
pense of grace of line. The sureness of the hand
and brain that could translate thus convincingly
into clay the bone and muscle and flesh of an active
child, is evidence of a gift for the plastic that
should place its owner on a high plane of achieve-
ment. This Petite Nymphe is somewhat of a de-
parture from the earlier style of this artist, which
was more freely imaginative. Her ceramics, The
Flame (a design for a candlestick) and The Frog
Baby (an ash receiver), are excellent examples of
this earlier style, wherein the imaginative pre-
dominates. The elusive charm and playfulness
of this earlier work is difficult to put into words,
as, for instance, The Stork Baby (a design for a
pin-tray in pottery), in which the cuddly, new-
born babe seems uncertain whether to cling to its
stork-mother or to heed the call of its earth-

a SCULPTOR FROM ST. LOUIS
/\ BY WILLIAMINA PARISH

mother; and in The Octopus Girl (a design for an
ink-well in porcelain), where a half-grown child
sits, fascinated by a huge octopus, uncertain

whether to advance
and make friends or
to retreat in terror.
Other manifesta-
tions of her versatil-
ity are her portrait
sketches of children
and her imaginative
child studies, one of
which, The Nicest
Book, was purchased
for the Children’s
Room of the new
Public Library.
In endeavouring to
analyze just what
constitutes the gift
of this young sculp-
tor, I should say it
was a fine balance
of the realistic and
the poetic, in which
the realism does not
descend to the literal
and commonplace,
and the poetic does
not become too fan-
tastic. In addition,
there is a quaint,
whimsical sense of
humour which shows

'-K

. »,.Z.




THE FLAME-SKETCH FOR POTTERY CANDLESTICK

BY CAROLINE E. RISQUE

Paris Salon, 1912
LA PETITE NYMPHE DE
LA RIVIERE DE NOHAIN
BY CAROLINE E. RISQUE

itself even in the animals
which nearly always ac-
company her children. Her
versatility is most evident
in her sympathy with all
the phases of humanity,
from childhood to old age,
and includes as wide a
range as the fairy-tale
princess and the Biblical
prophet, and all that lies
between. It has been said
of her creations that they
seem to be asking an un-
answerable question or
seeking the unattainable,
and it is this quality which
perhaps differentiates her

CLXXI