Sculpture in Soap

Phidias used Pentelic marble, but modern sculptors have a substance still whiter (and easier) to carve: Ivory Soap. In distributing $2,200 worth of Procter & Gamble prizes this week, in the 17th annual soap-sculpture competition, the jury--which included Paul Manship and William Zorach--had to winnow 4,500 entries.

Top winner for 1941 Ivory Soap Sculpture was Edward Anthony, 25, a talkative

Detroit art teacher, who has won ten awards in the last eleven contests. Teacher Anthony is a sure-enough sculptor who has studied under Carl Milles, works not only in soap but in wood, bronze, stone. A soap carving got him his first art fellowship. Sculptor Anthony did his prize-winning piece, a refugee couple bowed under their burdens, in two hours. He took a bar of soap along when he went to visit a friend who had had his tonsils out, whittled away while he talked.

Soap sculpture is popular because it is easy and cheap (only requisites: a bar of soap, a kitchen paring knife, an orangewood stick, a steady hand). Many a serious sculptor carves his small-scale models in soap, and its alabastery translucence makes it useful for window display and advertising photographs. One drawback: its fragility. Procter & Gamble sends the winning pieces on a year's tour of schools, stores and clubs. Before the tour's end, half the pieces are broken. Too fragile even to set out on this year's tour is a prizewinning cow. She lost her head on her way to the jury, had to be spliced by a soap surgeon before she could compete.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.