These two items are from George Quaintance's scrapbooks. The image on the left appears to be a page from Coronet magazine, which began publishing in 1936. The image on the right appears to be a newspaper clipping. There is no explanatory information for either image, although Robert of Fifth Avenue was a department store that employed Quaintance in the 1930s.
So are we to assume that these two sculptures, both approximately life-sized and both titled The Kiss, are by Quaintance? For many years, I believed they were (even knowing that George might paste any image he liked into his scrapbooks).
Over time, several actual copies of both sculptures came to my attention and I also had the opportunity to purchase an example of the Kiss on the left. Quaintance did not always sign his sculptures, especially the early ones, but there do exist signed examples of the Kiss on the right.
I have yet to see a signed example of the Kiss on the left. Thus I have come to believe that the Kiss on the left, with a flower in the woman's hair, is not by Quaintance at all. He admired it enough to tear the photo out of a magazine and paste it into a scrapbook, then to copy it with a similar design of his own.
If any reader owns a copy of the Kiss on the left with any signature at all, or can offer any additional information about it, I will be very happy to hear from you.
