MAURICE STERNE
Group of 5 pencil drawings of Mabel Dodge.
Each 1915-17. Various sizes and conditions. Provenance: Private collection, New York.Sterne (1878-1957) was born in Libau, Latvia and traveled extensively, to New York in 1904 and then to Europe, Egypt, Burma, and Java, before returning to the United States in 1914. From 1918 to 1933, he alternated time between New York and Anticoli, Italy. Sterne's movements allowed him to explore different styles and subjects, never settling on an identity for long. Sterne met Dodge (1879-1962), an artist and wealthy heiress born in Buffalo, New York, while attending a ballet recital in the summer of 1914 or 1915. Sterne, said of her, "The woman I was then to visit puzzled and intrigued me, attracted and repelled me. She was entirely different from the kind of woman I had always been attracted to before . . . Her most amazing feature was her eyes. They were cool, dark gray pools, shaded with long black lashes. They reflected her complex emotions spontaneously and honestly, could flash up with fury . . . or glow with rapture." During their summer in Cape Cod in 1915, Sterne completed a series Portraits of Mabel Dodge, which was shown in New York that winter. The two artists, though their relationship rife with conflict, married in Peekskill, New York in 1917, against the advice of their friends and families. Thereafter the couple moved to Taos, New Mexico. In 1918, Sterne moved back to New York and Dodge and her son remained in New Mexico. The two officially divorced in December 1922.