Rago Auctions

Sculptor, teacher, and museum curator William Wallace Rosenbauer was born in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts, the Kansas City Art Institute and, in late 1920s, with the Cubist sculptor Alexander Archipenko. After his education, Rosenbauer began his career as head of the sculpture department of the Kansas City Art Institute, where he would go on to serve as Director from 1940 to 1949. In the 1950s he taught at Parsons School of Design in New York before taking a position at the University of Connecticut, Stamford, where he taught and also served as Assistant Director of the Museum and Nature Center.

Throughout his career, Rosenbauer exhibited his sculptures in galleries and museums including the Brooklyn Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Academy of Design, and The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. He worked in a range of media, from stone to terracotta to bronze and, most often, wood. The present lot is illustrative of his style and in it we can see the echoes of Archipenko’s influence, particularly in the stylization of the figures. Rosenbauer even applied gold leaf to the verso of the screen, suggesting that it was intended to be viewed from both sides.