So I’m sitting in the audience at the auction, my hands and feet freezing because the owner has not fired up the furnace for the season, when I noticed that the auctioneer kept mentioning the word “nude.”
First, he asked for bids on three nude female nymphs in a white stone that looked like alabaster. Then, he asked for bids on an Art Deco semi-clad metal “female nude,” arms raised holding a hoop.
Soon, there was a succession of bronze-like sculptures, most bearing the name Frank Art, as noted on the auction sheet:
Frank Art Copy of Sarsaparilla Disc Lamp, female nude in cast white metal
Frank Art figural lamp with standing nude femlae
Pair Frank Art figural candlesticks with seated female nude on pedestal
Pair Art Deco figural bookends Frank Art style featuring standing nudes on rock form pedestals
Art Deco figural reclining female on stand
Frank Art bronzed patina figural night lamp, standing nude figure of woman
Frank Art style floor standing ashtray, standing nude female
What the heck was Frank Art, I wondered, and why was he so taken with nudes. These figures were lithe women, their bodies unnaturally posed, the images reminiscent of artist Erte’s women.
When you think of it, it’s understandable, though. Nude females do sell, and the female form is among the first drawings executed in most art classes (or so it seems). At auction, anytime an unclothed female item comes up for bids – be it postcards, boob joke items, photographs, pinup cards or whatever – as well as anything else pertaining to nudity, there is a frenzy to buy them.
The only time I noticed some embarrassment about nudity was when I first started going to auctions. A family had tossed a photo album of a couple – presumably a married couple – who had taken nude pictures of themselves. The album was the talk of the auction that day, and everyone who flipped through it did so not with a prurient look on their faces but embarrassment for the couple.
At this auction, Frank Art peaked my curiosity, so I Googled.
It seems that the art is Frankart, not two works but one, and the sculptures were produced by a man named Arthur Von Frankenberg. The model for his Art Deco figures was Leone Osborne, who was said to be a major English model of the day. This site has a photo of him sculpting a nude female at his studio in New York.
The company Frankart Inc. of New York was incorporated in 1922 by Frankenberg and two partners, but Frankenberg had begun making the sculptures a few years before that. By the early 1930s, the relationship turned sour when Frankenberg decided that he wanted to go it alone and take over the company. His partners balked, sued and won, and Frankenberg went out on his own. He continued to make and sell his sculptures under a new company name.
During its earliest years, Frankart made lamps, candlesticks, ashtrays, flower holders, inkwells and more. Then it expanded to include bookends, smokers stands, flower vases, wall plaques and clocks. The colors of the pieces also changed; the originals were Verde (later called “Roman green”), French (brown with green in crevices) and Japanese bronze (very dark brown with green in crevices). Gunmetal, or “polished grey,” was later added.
The pieces were made of lead and spray-painted, with the patent number and year stamped on the base, according to kovels.com.
Lamps with the female form seemed to be especially popular during the Art Deco period, including Frankart’s “boudoir pieces,” which one Art Deco book author described as “exotica – or perhaps just a dose of escapist whimsy – for everyman and everywoman.”
Here are some historical photos of the works, along with photos of the many types of figures. The pieces were mass-produced but were seemingly expensive, and were sold all over the world.
Apparently, very little is known about Frankenberg’s life after the 1930s. He was also a painter – I came across a 1932 watercolor – and an illustrator of at least one children’s book.
With Seymour Fleishman, he illustrated “The Magic Window Storybook” by Peggy Burrows in 1954. In 1936, he was listed on the cover of Esquire magazine under Cartoons, and one site mentioned that the September 1936 cover illustration was his. One retail site listed his death as 1992.
Some reproductions of his works are being made (the originals are marked). One such line is the Sarsaparilla lamp sold at the auction.
