Martha Mayer Erlebacher, Apollo

Erlebacher’s Apollo recalls the figure of Venus in Sandro Botticelli’s Italian Renaissance masterpiece, The Birth of Venus. Apollo, the youthful god of truth, beauty, music, and light stands in a contrapposto pose, his luxurious blond hair flowing and his unblemished body bathed in a silvery, bright light. 

Like Venus, Apollo represents all that is pure and beautiful in humanity. He stands on a ground of ruled and ordered geometry, and the fallen curtain behind him suggests that he has been born into the world as a mature being. The buildings on the far shore suggest the modern age.  

Erlebacher’s work is included in the collections of many museums, including Woodmere, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and many others in the United States and abroad.