Modeled 1923; cast 1929

The Dancers (Sailor and Sweetheart)

French (born Ukraine), 1888 - 1968

This bronze depicts a man in a sailor’s uniform and his female partner clasped together in a weight-sharing dance movement. It has been suggested that the setting is a costume ball for members of the Russian community in Paris. Chana Orloff emigrated in 1905 from her native Ukraine to one of the early Jewish agricultural settlements in present-day Israel, then moved once again, five years later, to Paris. There she took up art studies at both the National School of Decorative Arts and the Académie Russe, one of the independent art schools that served as meeting places for the many foreign-born aspiring artists who flocked to the city. Orloff developed her distinctive manner of formal simplification, a broadly accessible version of the Cubist style that was ascendant by the early 1920s. Known for her work in portrait sculpture, Orloff also favored themes of everyday popular entertainment, including music and dance