Figure of Loïe Fuller

From Edvard Munch’s predatory vampires and degenerate Madonnas, through a myriad of metamorphosing nymphs, to Alphonse Mucha’s decorative odalisques, women were the key subject matter of the fin-de-siècle. In the figure of the American dancer Loïe Fuller, the sinuous and accentuated forms of the Art Nouveau woman came together with another central leifmotif of the turn of the nineteenth century, dynamic movement.

Signifying a new and consumable world, Fuller proved one of the great attractions to Art Nouveau artists. Her extraordinary, swirling dance used scarves and coloured electric light to create the apparition of metamorphosing nature, and she came to embody the very essence of modernity. As one contemporary critic wrote, “Woman-flower, woman-bird, woman-butterfly, the themes of metamorphosis… were all found in the sinuous dancing of Loïe Fuller.”

Riessner, Stellmacher & Kessel’s powerful earthenware figure beautifully captures all the energy and eroticism of the age.

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Ghislaine Wood, Acting Director, Sainsbury Centre