During the mid-1930s, Walt Kuhn sought to perfect his draftsmanship through rigorous drawing exercises. He developed a monumental style that emphasized mass, volume, and economy of form. As a result of this return to study, Kuhn produced only eight paintings in 1935, less than half the total of each of the preceding two years. Dryad, a nearly three-quarter-length nude that was one of the artist’s eight paintings of 1935, derives its title from Greek mythology. A dryad is a female forest nymph who inhabits a tree, often an oak.

Kuhn recorded that the model for this painting was Betty Rothenburg, who “blew in” to his studio at 112 East 18th Street in New York. ^[1] Pressed close to the picture plane and set against a shallow, empty background, Rothenburg stands in a frontal pose, holds her hands behind her back, and looks dispassionately off to her left. Her hair is pulled up and an unadorned cloth tightly covers her lower body. The figure’s solid, abbreviated form dominates the stark composition and is reminiscent of late Archaic or early Classical Greek sculpture. Her body is columnar, mimicking the trunk of a tree where the mythical dryad resides. Unlike Kuhn’s other female nudes of the period, Miss X (1932, Birmingham Museum of Art) and Miss R (1936, private collection), the subject of Dryad does not address the viewer. While Miss X’s and Miss R’s gazes force an acknowledgment of their individuality, the woman in Dryad is depersonalized, allowing her to more seamlessly inhabit the guise of a forest nymph.

Kuhn noted that Dryad “had the most general appeal of pictures exhibited” when it was first shown at the Mary Harriman Gallery in 1937. ^[2] One critic praised Kuhn’s penetrating insight into human character and concluded that in the “serene records” of Wisconsin (1968.25.1) and “the unaffected model called Dryad,” the artist achieved “a deeper characterization and a much more sweeping rhythm” than in some of his circus subjects. ^[3] Another praised Dryad as a “sculptural body against a slaty background—a lovely classic figure in which Kuhn has set himself a high mark to surpass.” ^[4] In his study of Kuhn’s work, Paul Bird described Dryad as a “devotional essay on the eternal stability of womankind. The Amazonian model stands like a Doric column with gentle entasis of design.” ^[5] The artist’s biographer, Philip Rhys Adams, deemed Dryad “probably the finest of Walt Kuhn’s nudes, certainly the least sensuous and most sculptural.” ^[6]

The unlined, plain-weave fabric support remains mounted on its original stretcher. The tacking margins are intact with a sewn-on strip lining reinforcing the entire upper tacking edge. The thin white ground was commercially applied. ^[7] There is no underpainting visible using infrared reflectography that cannot be clearly detected on the surface in the form of dark outlining with paint. The artist painted the background fluidly, with wet-into-wet blending. The figure was more thickly and carefully painted, with leaner scumbles placed over already dry paint layers, indicating that the painting was executed over a relatively long period of time. The x-radiograph does not reveal any pentimenti. The painting is in good condition, although its appearance is marred by a scattering of tiny orange spots throughout its surface that appear to be undissolved particles of varnish resin. It is coated with an even layer of somewhat discolored natural resin varnish.

Michael Swicklik

July 24, 2024