How does She Who Must Be Obeyed (sculpture) elucidate its Title?
Smith had an open-ended approach to titling his works. Some shapes reminded him of specific objects; others carry the names and initials of dear friends. With its horn-like appendages, Moses refers to Michelangelo's portrayal of that patriarch. Because he was well read, and even had run a secondhand bookstore during the Great Depression, a number of the artist's sculptures have literary monikers. Gracehoper, for example, is a word that appears in Finnegans Wake, James Joyce's Modernist classic. She Who Must Be Obeyed derives from a more populist source, the 1886–87 novel She: A History of Adventure by H. Rider Haggard, a tale of a lost kingdom.
James Joyce She: A History of Adventure Great Depression Michelangelo's portrayal of that patriarch Gracehoper H. Rider Haggard Finnegans Wake