Fabled City

Photo: Ken McAllister

Date: 1961
Size: H: 13” x W: 24.5” x D: 9"
Casts: 1
Form: Architectural
Material: Pink Compound Stone.

Elza’s work throughout was concerned with architecture, and its relation to people. “I have never made anything not closely connected with the human being and his environment.”

Fabled City was made several years before Moshe Safdie’s iconic Habitat was built for EXPO 67. It could perhaps be considered a precursor to Safdie’s experimental housing complex, though certainly this kind of radical modular architecture was in the spirit of the times.

Several rice paper “impressions” from the sculpture were made by Isamu Akino. For more information, see Endnote in Black Priestess entry.

Three smaller related works are known:

Odalisque. White compound stone. H: 9.5” x W: 17.5” x D: 8”. Composition I. Cast iron. Location, and actual size, unknown. Composition II. Aluminum. H: 11” x W: 14” x D: 4”.

For more information about Isamu Akino and his process, please see endnote in Black Priestess section.