SCULPTURAL FANTASY

229
VERY FINE AND RARE CARVED AND
POLYCHROME PAINT-DECORATED
WOODEN PANEL OF TEMPTATION,
HENRI (HENRY) BERNHARDT (B. 1870),
SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA,
CIRCA 1935
Height 29 ½ in. by Width 40 in. by Depth 3 ⅜ in.
PROVENANCE
Allan Katz, Woodbridge, Connecticut.
Henry (Henri) Bernhardt was an eccentric artist who gained
national notoriety on August 7,1939, when Life magazine
published photos of the life-sized statues of nude women he
had placed on his front lawn, each enclosed in a glass box.
In a letter to the magazine’s editor, a Spartanburg resident
reported that “there’s been much discussion about them.
Every time the neighbors complain about them, he adds
another figure.” In late October 1939, the Spartansburg
Herald-Journal announced that Bernhardt planned to open a
museum “that would house numbers of [his] wood carvings
and paintings, recognized by authorities as some of the best
throughout the South.” Among the sculptures described in
the article are a head of Christ and figures of King Herod,
Salome in a dancing pose, and a slave bearing the severed
head of John the Baptist. This earlier relief carving of Eve
seducing Adam may have been among the works intended
for the museum and is a prime example of Bernhardt’s
provocative style.
$ 25,000-35,000
232 SOTHEBY’S THE IMPORTANT AMERICAN FOLK ART COLLECTION OF STEPHEN AND PETRA LEVIN