Art: Woman in a Bird Bath

Maldarelli’s star ex-pupil is 30-year-old Mitzi Solomon, but strangely enough, none of the nudes in Maldarelli’s show (see above) was named Mitzi. She staged an exhibition of her own last week, just around the corner from the master’s, and Maldarelli did not bother to see it. Her work had grown a world apart from his.

Shaking back her long dark hair, Mitzi sadly tried to define the rift: “He’s interested in the generalized shape of a woman; I like the generalized shape, period. Breasts, buttocks, hills and seed pods have similar shapes. I generalize them to make my figures mean more than just one thing.”

Mitzi’s prone, aluminum Lovers (TIME, May 5, 1947) was almost embarrassingly specific, but her bronze Eve (see cut) showed the highly literary kind of generalization Mitzi was after. Eve looked a little pregnant; the applelike belly was inlaid with a brass circle and what looked like veins. “I wanted a feeling of built-in guilt,” said Mitzi.

Lacking Maldarelli’s subtlety in sculpture, Mitzi makes up for it in wit, a wealth of ideas, and a willingness to be laughed at even when she is dead-earnest. The hit of her show was a model for a 114-ft. Family of Man Totem that she thought would look well in front of the U.N. building. (“People told me I was a fool to try it, but I said if I wanted to be diplomatic I wouldn’t be a sculptor.”) Among the most entertaining exhibits was a bulbous Woman-Shaped Vessel seated in a bird bath. Its head was a giant stopper, and Mitzi figured the body should be used for holding “something fruity—rum, I guess.”

Sometimes, Mitzi says, she is afraid of getting to be 40. “I think maybe I’ll look back and realize my work was tenth-rate. But meanwhile, I’ve got to keep hammering. It comes straight out of my nervous system. I’ll probably die of a short circuit.”