''Heads and Tales'' is a book by

Malvina Hoffman Malvina Cornell Hoffman (June 15, 1885July 10, 1966) was an American sculptor and author, well known for her life-size bronze sculptures of people. She also worked in plaster and marble. Hoffman created portrait busts of working-class people and ...

first published in 1936. The book chronicles Hoffman's travels and efforts to create a series of sculptures for the Field Museum of Natural History’s Races of Mankind following being picked to do it in 1929. The parameters of the project were spelled out by Henry Field, who stated that Hoffman, “was commissioned to proceed to those lands where native races are at their purest and there register in clay and finish in bronze the living lineaments of selected types. The book, dedicated to Ignace Jan Paderewski, begins with a discussion of Hoffman’s early years and her time studying to be a sculptor, with some importance placed on her relationships with Auguste Rodin and

Ivan Meštrović Ivan Meštrović (; 15 August 1883 – 16 January 1962) was a Croatian sculptor, architect, and writer. He was the most prominent modern Croatian sculptor and a leading artistic personality in contemporary Zagreb. He studied at Pavle Bilinić's ...

. Some attention is paid to the process of making sculpture, about her relationships with the Valsuani Foundry and the

Roman Bronze Works Roman Bronze Works, now operated as Roman Bronze Studios, is a bronze foundry in New York City. Established in 1897 by Riccardo Bertelli, it was the first American foundry to specialize in the lost-wax casting method, and was the country's pre-emin ...

, both of whom specialized in the

lost wax process Lost-wax casting (also called "investment casting", "precision casting", or ''cire perdue'' which has been adopted into English from the French, ) is the process by which a duplicate metal sculpture (often silver, gold, brass, or bronze) i ...

. The second portion of the book details with Hoffman’s travels in the

Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

and other places prior to being picked for the Field Museum project. The most important third section begins with “When we started on our ‘Round the World” trip in September 1931,” and from there on the book concerns itself with her producing the life sized sculptures for the Races of Mankind exhibit. Her story winds up in

Taos, New Mexico Taos is a town in Taos County in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Nuevo México Governor Fernando Ch ...

to create her ‘aboriginal American” sculptures. The sculptures that Hoffman made are used as illustrations in the book, ''The March of Civilization in maps and pictures.''The March of Civilization in maps and pictures, C.S.Hammond & Co., Maplewood, New Jersey, 1963

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Heads and Tales 1936 non-fiction books American autobiographies Charles Scribner's Sons books