Dawn is a 1931 bronze sculpture by Helen Journeay.[1][2] It depicts a nude woman in a contrapposto pose with her right elbow raised and right hand behind her head. With her left hand, she caresses the head of a fawn standing behind her.
Versions
There are at least two versions of this work. The original is entirely nude. Several stories recount how a second version was modified to include a diaphanous veil draped over her right breast and belly. Art historian and curator Robin Salmon wrote that the sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington viewed photographs of the work in its initial form and suggested to Journeay that the sculpture would be improved by adding a drapery.[1] In a Washington Post article from 1935, Journeay humorously recounted that a "righteous Southern gentleman" (presumably Archer Milton Huntington, the husband of Anna), after viewing the original sculpture standing in the store window of Gorham Manufacturing Company in New York, had timidly suggested that if a veil were added to the work, he would purchase it. Officials from Gorham contacted the artist who quickly modified the model so that it could be recast in bronze at the Gorham Foundry with a veil.[3] Both stories conclude with the Huntingtons purchasing the veiled work for Brookgreen Gardens, a sculpture garden in South Carolina they had founded. A cast of the work without the veil currently stands in Hermann Park's McGovern Centennial Gardens in Houston, Texas.[4]
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