TitleThe Flame
Artist
Robert Ingersoll Aitken
(American, 1878 - 1949)
Date1908
MediumBronze
DimensionsOverall: 20 1/4 × 8 1/8 × 8 3/4 in.
SignedSigned at left: "Aitken 1908"
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, Gift of Mrs. Robert I. Aitken, 1963
Object number161-S
Label TextThe Flame, conceived and executed in New York after Aitken's return from his second, and longer, visit to Paris, shows a close kinship to some of the sculptures of Auguste Rodin, among others.The work was the inaugural recipient of the Academy's Helen Foster Barnett Prize in the 1908 winter exhibition, which gave exceptional emphasis to the art of sculpture. Its 338 paintings were presented, as usual, in the galleries at 215 West Fifty-seventh Street, but 178 sculptures comprised a continuation of the exhibition installed next door, in the Frank Jay Gould Riding Circle, at 217 West Fifty-seventh Street. Also, while several Academy exhibition prizes were allowed to be presented for paintings or sculptures, only once previously had a sculpture received one (Julia A. Shaw Memorial Prize to Bessie Potter Vonnoh, annual, 1904). The institution of the Barnett Prize, reserved to sculpture, on this occasion was surely intended to underscore the Academy's demonstration of support for American sculptors.
In 1909 a version of this work was shown at Buffalo Fine Arts Academy and Albright Art Gallery as part of a collection of small bronzes lent by the National Sculpture Society. Arthur Hoeber called the embracing pair "almost elemental in their abandon, their virility and the intensity of their mutual love." It remained one of Aitken's most popular works.
