Clara Tice

Image not available
Clara Tice
1888-1973
Ant Eater
c. 1922
Opaque watercolor and graphite pencil on orange paper.
11 x 16 inches (27.9 x 40.6 cm)
Bequest of Belle da Costa Greene, 1950.
1950.35
Notes: 

Tice was an eccentric illustrator and artist who became known as the "Queen of Greenwich Village" in the early decades of the twentieth century. She was a staff artist at Vanity Fair and a contributor to many other publications, as well as a stage and costume designer. Tice was known for her clever and erotic drawings and prints. This sheet, showing a large anteater and a diminutive nude female, was part of a group of works she exhibited at the Anderson Galleries in New York in 1922, entitled "Animals and Nudes." In the catalogue's introductory essay, a contemporary wrote of Tice, "unlike most American artists, she not only paints life, but feels it; feels it intensely and poignantly; especially its happiness, its humor, and its fantastic gaiety." This was one of the first twentieth-century works to enter the Morgan's collection. It belonged to the Morgan's first director, Belle da Costa Greene.

Inscription: 

Signed in green, lower right: "Clara Tice"

Provenance: 
Belle da Costa Greene (1883-1950), New York, from whom acquired by the Morgan.
Artist page: 
Century: 
Classification: