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Girl Skating

1906
On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 772
Girl Skating is a sympathetic portrayal of a child hurtling forward on just one roller skate. She utters an excited cry, her outstretched arms balancing her body against the wind that sweeps back her hair and presses her ragged dress against her torso and thighs. The work reveals Eberle as an artist with a social conscience, who saw it as her mission to serve as "the specialized eye of society" through her statuettes of the urban poor, especially those living on New York’s Lower East Side. As she explained: "The children of the East Side play without restraint; their griefs and their joys are expressed with absolute abandon. . . . They are real—real as they can be. They express life."

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Girl Skating
  • Artist: Mary Abastenia St. Leger Eberle (American, Webster City, Iowa 1878–1942 New York)
  • Date: 1906
  • Medium: Bronze
  • Dimensions: 13 x 11 1/4 x 6 1/4 in. (33 x 28.6 x 15.9 cm)
  • Classification: Sculpture
  • Credit Line: Rogers Fund, 1909
  • Object Number: 09.57
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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4580. Girl Skating

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