The Pelican Cage, Central Park, 1918

William Zorach’s Pelican Cage, Central Park seamlessly blends Realist and Cubist elements into a unified whole.  This charming drawing is based on a painting the artist completed the year before.  Zorach’s reworking of the subject shows intriguing progress in the artist’s investigation of Cubism.  The painting from 1917 is a beautiful and highly successful work in its own right, but the drawing is a refinement of the earlier work.  The figures in the foreground, rendered in angular planes, are absent in the painting.  This provides the drawing with greater depth, a human element and a more complete composition.  The two figures at left are vague, abstracted forms in the original version, here Zorach has sharpened them.  Zorach’s use of color in the oil painting displays his usual sumptuousness and sophistication, yet in the drawing he is able to add marvelous nuances through the use of delicate shading on the numerous planes in the drawing.  These changes clarify the subject matter, while also retaining the Cubist elements of the work.