JODI HAUPTMAN: In this particular work, you can see Lincoln's interested in the folk, and in an America that he feels is fading away. So there's a kind of nostalgia to this work, this woman in this long dress at the piano.
SAMANTHA FRIEDMAN: Nadelman has arrested her right in the middle of an action. Her hands are poised over the piano. So, we have a little bit of a breath in anticipation before the hands come down, and the music begins. Similarly, if you look at her foot, it's poised just above the pedal. So, you have this sense of time and of motion, and of anticipation, which is the same sense that you might get in a choreography.
SAMANTHA FRIEDMAN: Kirstein was also close friends with many of the artists whose work he championed, including Gaston Lachaise. Lachaise was often hard up for money, and Kirstein was often slipping him a few dollars, here and there, to support him. He was also convincing his wealthy friends and his institutional contacts to purchase work by the artist.
JODI HAUPTMAN: I think the sculpture in this room by Nadelman and Lachaise does show the kind of modern that Lincoln was interested in, and that's a modern that is connected to classicism, that is connected to the past, and is always about figuration or the body.