Posted 6 years ago
rlwindle
(151 items)
This little figure is erroneously attributed to Gerdago (a.k.a. Gerda Gottstein, Gerda Gottschlich, Gerda lro), who was born Gerda Gottstein in Vienna, she pursued art studies, first in Berlin in 1927, and then Paris in 1928-29, where she worked as an assistant to architect and stage and film designer Oskar Strnad.
The name Gerdago was a professional pseudonym made up of her first name, "Gerda", and the first two letters of her
last name, "Go". In the early 1930s she was designing costumes for dance revues, when director Willi Forst discovered her and hired her to design costumes for his films.
Gottstein never worked for any fashion enterprise. Her Art Deco sculptures, which were made in Austria by the
Arthur Rubinstein foundry, feature elaborate and exotic costumes. They were created by a sculptor working from her
drawings and designs. Currently the identity of this sculptor is still a mystery. Austrian artists Kari Perl and Theodore Ulimann, who both worked with the Arthur Rubinstein foundry, have been associated with the Gerdago sculptures, and the work of both is stylistically similar. However, nothing currently permits the identification of the artist who turned Gerda s designs
into sculptures. Gerda Gottstein died in Vienna on January 20 2004 at the age of 97.
Hirsch's figure is based on "Danseuse Des Indes (Indian Dancer)" after Ignacio Gallo who is a renowned sculptor in his own right. This little danseuse figure is 9 inches tall, and stands on an alabaster base, with lights on each end with carved alabaster shades.
