Renée
Prahar (circa 1879 — August 17, 1962) also known as Irene Prahar, was an
American sculptor and actress based in New York City and later in Connecticut.
Queer Places:
École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 14 Rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France
Irene Prahar was born in New York, of Bohemian ancestry.[1] She studied sculpture in Paris at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, working with Auguste Rodin and Antoine Bourdelle. While in Paris, she showed work at the Salon of the Société National des Beaux-Arts in 1911[2] and again in 1914.[3]
Prahar began working as a stage actress, in the company of actor Richard Mansfield.[4] She appeared with Mansfield in Old Heidelberg (1903-1904),[5] The Death of Ivan the Terrible (1905),[6] The Merchant of Venice (1906),[7] The Scarlet Letter (1906),[8] and Peer Gynt (1906).[9]
As a sculptor, Prahar created portrait busts[10] and human or animal figures, usually angular and stylized, in a method she called "Triangularism".[11] In 1922, she was hired to create monkey sculptures and architectural features to adorn the terrace of Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt.[12] Her "Fox Gate Posts" were featured in the 1931 opening of the American Women's Association's permanent gallery in 1931.[13] She also designed a medal for the American Women's Association, given as an award to distinguished women of the New York area.[14] The medal's first recipient in 1931 was Margaret Sanger.[15]
Critic Henry McBride called Prahar "a pioneer in the fantastic and the grotesque."[16] In the same year, the New York Times critic commented on Prahar's "remarkably cool intellectuality".[17]
In 1930 she wrote in protest of fellow sculptor George Grey Barnard's eviction from his studio space.[18] Later in her career, she designed and decorated homes in Connecticut, with George's daughter, Colette Barnard.[19]
Renee Prahar died in 1962, aged 83 years, in New London, Connecticut.[19]
A small collection of Prahar's papers are in the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art.[20]
My published books:
