TitleDream
Artist
José De Creeft
(Spanish/American, 1884 - 1982)
Date[1938-1940]
MediumSienna marble
DimensionsOverall: 21 × 10 × 10 in.
SignedSigned at lower left: "JOSE de CREEFT".
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, May 4, 1964
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number164-S
Label TextThis sculpture is typical of the sculptor's allegorical works directly carved in stone. The conception was followed by several other works entitled "Dream." One carved in green serpentine, dated 1958, shows a more fully-realized figure, partially draped. Another (Collection of Lorrie Goulet de Creeft, New York), in pink Tennessee marble, dating from 1961, is close in form and feeling to the Academy's piece; the National Sculpture Society awarded this work its Therese and Edwin H. Richard Memorial Prize in 1969. A third Dream (Private Collection, Pennsylvania), dated 1964, and carved in white alabaster, is more amorphous and abstract than the previous versions and might be said to be more related to Symbolist imagery.The existence of these several pieces bearing the same title has caused some confusion as to their dating. Campos dates the Academy's piece to 1958, but he may have been confused by the green serpentine carving which in 1960 was owned by The Contemporaries, De Creeft's dealer, who had given it the 1958 date. The Academy's piece seems to be the one to which de Creeft referred in a note among his papers, where he gives the date of 1940 for the work. In her catalogue for the 1960 retrospective exhibition of de Creeft's work, Devree assigned the Academy's Dream the date of 1938.
[c. 1855]
