French Sculpture
including French-born artists
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Women artists Current art by women Gauguin Matisse Klein Man and woman
Chronology : 1903 1908 1959 1960 1970-1979 1978 1990-1999 1997
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Women artists Current art by women Gauguin Matisse Klein Man and woman
Chronology : 1903 1908 1959 1960 1970-1979 1978 1990-1999 1997
1902 Thérèse by Gauguin
2015 SOLD for $ 31M by Christie's
Gauguin's resentment against the establishment was taking the form of insulting provocations. He left Tahiti where he was not any more finding an inspiration to his art and arrived in the Marquesas in September 1901. He soon retrieved the targets of his vituperation : the Catholic clergy and the gendarmes of the French Republic.
Gauguin blamed the Catholics for their hypocritical opposition to sexual freedom and rejoiced about the weaknesses of the prelates. He purchased a piece of land to the local bishop to build his home which he decorated as a temple to pornography under the complacently inscribed name Maison du Jouir (House of orgasm). He bought a young vahine, achieving to generate the total exasperation of the missionaries.
This exiled artist has humor. The best exhibition place in the Maison du Jouir is the door, visible from outside. Around August 1902, Gauguin installs two statues made by him in rosewood in native style. The man, Père Paillard (Father Debauchery), is a caricature of the bishop as a horned devil. The woman, Thérèse, is inspired by the gossip that the servant of the bishop was also his mistress.
On this phallic shaped statue 66 cm high, Thérèse is a nice woman, naked except for a loincloth. With her oversized head increasing her expressive feature, she is a transposition of primitive art to a Western subject. Although the intention of the artist was purely local, appealing beside him the laughers of Atuona, this artwork anticipates the interpretation of African and Oceanian figures by the artists of the twentieth century.
Thérèse was sold for $ 31M from a lower estimate of $ 18M for sale by Christie's on November 9, 2015, lot 5A. Its pendant Père Paillard is kept at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
Gauguin blamed the Catholics for their hypocritical opposition to sexual freedom and rejoiced about the weaknesses of the prelates. He purchased a piece of land to the local bishop to build his home which he decorated as a temple to pornography under the complacently inscribed name Maison du Jouir (House of orgasm). He bought a young vahine, achieving to generate the total exasperation of the missionaries.
This exiled artist has humor. The best exhibition place in the Maison du Jouir is the door, visible from outside. Around August 1902, Gauguin installs two statues made by him in rosewood in native style. The man, Père Paillard (Father Debauchery), is a caricature of the bishop as a horned devil. The woman, Thérèse, is inspired by the gossip that the servant of the bishop was also his mistress.
On this phallic shaped statue 66 cm high, Thérèse is a nice woman, naked except for a loincloth. With her oversized head increasing her expressive feature, she is a transposition of primitive art to a Western subject. Although the intention of the artist was purely local, appealing beside him the laughers of Atuona, this artwork anticipates the interpretation of African and Oceanian figures by the artists of the twentieth century.
Thérèse was sold for $ 31M from a lower estimate of $ 18M for sale by Christie's on November 9, 2015, lot 5A. Its pendant Père Paillard is kept at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC.
Paul Gauguin's Thérèse sells for $30,965,000 a #worldauctionrecord for a sculpture by the artist. pic.twitter.com/NuEf8SG0Ex
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) November 10, 20151901-1903 L'Eternel Printemps by Rodin
2016 SOLD for $ 20.4M by Sotheby's
Auguste Rodin likes the vigorous bodies which he reproduces in high realism by kneading the earth. The Torso of Adèle, realized before 1880, displays the muscular curvature of a naked young woman. When he meets Camille Claudel, he expresses his new passion by providing a young man to his Adèle now complemented with her limbs and a head.
This first version of L'Eternel Printemps (The Eternal Spring) is carved in the mid 1880s. With the excuse of the reference to Dante in the Gates of Hell and the desire for a total art inspired by Beethoven, Rodin injects in this nude couple an intense erotic surge. The kneeling woman is embraced by the powerful young man. Mouths are joined in a kiss. The title positions the mad love outside the time of our civilizations while evoking the season of sap rising.
Rodin has marbles carved in single blocks by his workshop in response to customer orders. The first marble of The Eternal Spring is started in 1896. The group is now built against a rock which ensures the robustness of the outstretched arm.
The fifth marble of The Eternal Spring is commissioned in 1901 by a friend of Rainer Maria Rilke and completed in 1903, the year when the poet wrote an essay on Rodin. This sculpture 66 cm high and 80 cm long is weighing 154 Kg. It was sold for $ 20.4M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on May 9, 2016, lot 17. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This first version of L'Eternel Printemps (The Eternal Spring) is carved in the mid 1880s. With the excuse of the reference to Dante in the Gates of Hell and the desire for a total art inspired by Beethoven, Rodin injects in this nude couple an intense erotic surge. The kneeling woman is embraced by the powerful young man. Mouths are joined in a kiss. The title positions the mad love outside the time of our civilizations while evoking the season of sap rising.
Rodin has marbles carved in single blocks by his workshop in response to customer orders. The first marble of The Eternal Spring is started in 1896. The group is now built against a rock which ensures the robustness of the outstretched arm.
The fifth marble of The Eternal Spring is commissioned in 1901 by a friend of Rainer Maria Rilke and completed in 1903, the year when the poet wrote an essay on Rodin. This sculpture 66 cm high and 80 cm long is weighing 154 Kg. It was sold for $ 20.4M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on May 9, 2016, lot 17. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Rodin's Eternal Springtime - on offer this May in #SothebysImpMod https://t.co/fJInnZfclH #ImagineTheConversation pic.twitter.com/1GQxqHF8Ah
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) April 20, 2016
1908 Nu Allongé by Matisse
2018 SOLD for £ 15M by Phillips
Henri Matisse is one of the earliest artists to release the figurative arts from the realistic proportions of photography. He kneads the clay from 1899. His table sculptures allow him to watch the bold angles of view which will bring an expressive harmony to the disproportions. La Danse in 1909 is the spectacular culmination of this creative process. Matisse's clay nudes are to be compared to Meissonier's wax horses.
Matisse explores several paths in parallel including the pointillisme inspired by Signac and it is Fauvisme that raises its reputation in 1905. Soon afterward the first encounters of European artists with African tribal art convince him of the possibility to derogate from the forms of nature.
During his stays in Collioure Matisse frequently meets Maillol in Banyuls. Maillol endeavors to simplify the nude to achieve the purity in perfect proportions. They have complementary approaches that both release the nude from Rodin's muscular eroticism.
In 1907 in Collioure, Matisse designs Nu allongé I, 34 x 50 x 29 cm. The torsion of the body could evoke Rodin but the hypertrophied raised elbow announces a new style. This artwork will be nicknamed L'Aurore (dawn) by comparison of the robust attitude with the famous funerary marble by Michelangelo. In the same year his Nu bleu is a pictorial projection of the Nu allongé I. This painting will be often imitated by Picasso and inaugurates the lifelong competition between these two artists.
Matisse's priority is painting but he also makes bronzes, sparingly. During his lifetime only eleven bronzes of the Nu allongé I are cast, the last one being an artist's proof. They are distributed from 1908 to 1951 in no less than five different casts.
The first three bronzes were edited in Paris around 1908 by Bingen et Costenoble who were also working for Maillol. One of them was sold for £ 15M from a lower estimate of £ 5M by Phillips on March 8, 2018, lot 9. Two later copies had fetched a very high price at auction for their time : $ 8.4M by Christie's on November 9, 1999 for one of the two 1912 bronzes and $ 9.6M by Phillips on May 7, 2001 for one of the three 1930 bronzes.
Matisse explores several paths in parallel including the pointillisme inspired by Signac and it is Fauvisme that raises its reputation in 1905. Soon afterward the first encounters of European artists with African tribal art convince him of the possibility to derogate from the forms of nature.
During his stays in Collioure Matisse frequently meets Maillol in Banyuls. Maillol endeavors to simplify the nude to achieve the purity in perfect proportions. They have complementary approaches that both release the nude from Rodin's muscular eroticism.
In 1907 in Collioure, Matisse designs Nu allongé I, 34 x 50 x 29 cm. The torsion of the body could evoke Rodin but the hypertrophied raised elbow announces a new style. This artwork will be nicknamed L'Aurore (dawn) by comparison of the robust attitude with the famous funerary marble by Michelangelo. In the same year his Nu bleu is a pictorial projection of the Nu allongé I. This painting will be often imitated by Picasso and inaugurates the lifelong competition between these two artists.
Matisse's priority is painting but he also makes bronzes, sparingly. During his lifetime only eleven bronzes of the Nu allongé I are cast, the last one being an artist's proof. They are distributed from 1908 to 1951 in no less than five different casts.
The first three bronzes were edited in Paris around 1908 by Bingen et Costenoble who were also working for Maillol. One of them was sold for £ 15M from a lower estimate of £ 5M by Phillips on March 8, 2018, lot 9. Two later copies had fetched a very high price at auction for their time : $ 8.4M by Christie's on November 9, 1999 for one of the two 1912 bronzes and $ 9.6M by Phillips on May 7, 2001 for one of the three 1930 bronzes.
(1879-1881) posthumous > 1922 Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans by Degas
2015 SOLD for £ 15.8M by Sotheby's
Original artist with an uneasy temper, Edgar Degas was one of the most innovative graphic artists of the nineteenth century. He knew that he was close to the Impressionists and appreciated their rejection of classicism. His own creative process was very complex, as shown in the example below.
In 1879, Marie draws the attention of the artist. Aged 14, this "petit rat d'Opéra" is an ungrateful teenager, far from physiological maturity, with awkward gestures, but already attracted to her future career as a dancer (which ended before it was to start when she was fired from the dance school for repeated absences).
Degas was a painter, draftsman, sculptor, photographer, printer, but his great art was oil and pastel. He used drawing and sculpture like sketches.
On his first sculpture of Marie, 74 cm high, the girl is naked. This makes sense since the artist wants to study the movements of her body. This is not enough for him. He realized another larger statue in painted wax, a little over 1 m, in the same position, with the unconventional idea to equip it with a dancing dress in cloth. By its realism that does not reject some ugliness, the Petite danseuse will be considered as a key work of modern sculpture.
After much hesitation, Degas shows his Petite danseuse de quatorze ans at the Impressionist exhibition of 1881. After this unique event and until his death in 1917, no sculpture of the master will be exhibited.
Degas considered that his waxes were too fragile for preparing bronze casts. From 1922 to 1938, Hébrard can now publish the sculptures found in Degas's studio.
Petite danseuse de quatorze ans was edited by Hébrard in bronze with muslin skirt and satin hair ribbon. A copy was sold for £ 13.3M by Sotheby's on February 3, 2009. Another copy was sold twice by Sotheby's : for £ 7M before fees on June 27, 2000 and for £ 15.8M on June 24, 2015, lot 14. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's :
In 1879, Marie draws the attention of the artist. Aged 14, this "petit rat d'Opéra" is an ungrateful teenager, far from physiological maturity, with awkward gestures, but already attracted to her future career as a dancer (which ended before it was to start when she was fired from the dance school for repeated absences).
Degas was a painter, draftsman, sculptor, photographer, printer, but his great art was oil and pastel. He used drawing and sculpture like sketches.
On his first sculpture of Marie, 74 cm high, the girl is naked. This makes sense since the artist wants to study the movements of her body. This is not enough for him. He realized another larger statue in painted wax, a little over 1 m, in the same position, with the unconventional idea to equip it with a dancing dress in cloth. By its realism that does not reject some ugliness, the Petite danseuse will be considered as a key work of modern sculpture.
After much hesitation, Degas shows his Petite danseuse de quatorze ans at the Impressionist exhibition of 1881. After this unique event and until his death in 1917, no sculpture of the master will be exhibited.
Degas considered that his waxes were too fragile for preparing bronze casts. From 1922 to 1938, Hébrard can now publish the sculptures found in Degas's studio.
Petite danseuse de quatorze ans was edited by Hébrard in bronze with muslin skirt and satin hair ribbon. A copy was sold for £ 13.3M by Sotheby's on February 3, 2009. Another copy was sold twice by Sotheby's : for £ 7M before fees on June 27, 2000 and for £ 15.8M on June 24, 2015, lot 14. Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's :
1959 Sculpture Eponge (SE 168) by Klein
2013 SOLD for $ 22M by Sotheby's
From 1956 Yves Klein challenges the relationship between the artist and the viewer. His Monochromes can not evoke any kind of figuration. As with Mondrian, the perfectly applied layer is hardly disturbed by an effect from the brush.
Klein was too ahead of his time. Visitors to his early exhibitions acclaimed the colors as if they were in a decorator's shop. The artist is upset by this interpretation. Henceforth all his monochromes must be in intense blue. He patents his pigment, the IKB (Yves Klein Blue).
He is now able to display unreachable or intangible elements like sky and sea. He does not stop at the immaterial in his simulation of the universe. Sponges, fire, monochromes and anthropométries will gradually be the components that will allow him to visualize his metaphysics.
His cosmographic approach is thus a patchwork of series carefully numbered behind a prefix, culminating in the final months of his short life in a sublime synthesis of universe, elements and life. The series of Sculptures Eponges (SE) was developed in 1959. It should not be confused with the Reliefs Eponges (RE).
The sponge is an essential step in his progress. It has the great quality in the process of the artist to immediately imbibe the beautiful IKB. This working tool is now a piece of art in its own right that can evoke figurative themes through its rough texture.
SE 168 is a very early example of the Sculptures Eponges, displayed in the seminal solo exhibition on that theme by Iris Clert in 1959. An accumulation of IKB sponges embellished with voids and cracks form a flower, mounted on a winding metal rod stuck in a stone base to ensure stability. This flower could be compared with a Calder mobile. Its 1.13 m high overall size is exceptional in that series. It was sold for $ 22M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2013, lot 12.
Klein was too ahead of his time. Visitors to his early exhibitions acclaimed the colors as if they were in a decorator's shop. The artist is upset by this interpretation. Henceforth all his monochromes must be in intense blue. He patents his pigment, the IKB (Yves Klein Blue).
He is now able to display unreachable or intangible elements like sky and sea. He does not stop at the immaterial in his simulation of the universe. Sponges, fire, monochromes and anthropométries will gradually be the components that will allow him to visualize his metaphysics.
His cosmographic approach is thus a patchwork of series carefully numbered behind a prefix, culminating in the final months of his short life in a sublime synthesis of universe, elements and life. The series of Sculptures Eponges (SE) was developed in 1959. It should not be confused with the Reliefs Eponges (RE).
The sponge is an essential step in his progress. It has the great quality in the process of the artist to immediately imbibe the beautiful IKB. This working tool is now a piece of art in its own right that can evoke figurative themes through its rough texture.
SE 168 is a very early example of the Sculptures Eponges, displayed in the seminal solo exhibition on that theme by Iris Clert in 1959. An accumulation of IKB sponges embellished with voids and cracks form a flower, mounted on a winding metal rod stuck in a stone base to ensure stability. This flower could be compared with a Calder mobile. Its 1.13 m high overall size is exceptional in that series. It was sold for $ 22M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2013, lot 12.
1960 Relief Eponge by KLEIN
1
1960 Le Rose du Bleu (RE 22)
2012 SOLD for £ 23.5M by Christie's
Yves Klein was spreading his color on canvas. Suddenly, like Kandinsky discovering by chance (according to legend) that he had just invented abstract art, Klein is rising to the rank of a basic artistic figure a sponge soaked with paint which he just used.
Thus began around 1959 the series of RE (Reliefs Eponges) : transforming his panels into sculpture, the artist stages sponges and pebbles on a flat surface in a composition that remains beautifully monochrome.
In that RE series, Klein proposes a cosmic meaning. A sponge is shaped like an asteroid which was not altered by an atmosphere.
His monochromes are the elements of a trinity. His colors were the IKB, the madder pink and the gold. More appealing than the three classical primary colors, these colors express separately the properties of the universe before being mixed by the action of water and fire.
He then creates a new world full of these strange figures pushing him in the following of the mineral landscapes of Tanguy. But Tanguy died in 1955, and the space conquest had meanwhile generated its imaginary craters and lifeless rocks.
In 1961 in Krefeld, an exhibition demonstrates the clash of colors of Klein's trinity by attributing a different room to each color. Two artworks made in 1960 are particularly highlighted. Both were made in dry synthetic resin, natural sponges and pebbles on board.
The blue room is dominated by Archisponge, 200 x 165 cm, which was sold for $ 21.4M by Sotheby's in 2008.
On June 27, 2012, Christie's sold for £ 23.5M the masterpiece of the pink room, 199 x 153 x 16 cm, lot 9. Its mysterious title, Le Rose du Bleu, does not doubt the purity of the madder pigment but reveals that the artist attempts a unified vision of his Pink with the immaterial symbol of his basic Blue. Please watch the video prepared by Christie's.
Thus began around 1959 the series of RE (Reliefs Eponges) : transforming his panels into sculpture, the artist stages sponges and pebbles on a flat surface in a composition that remains beautifully monochrome.
In that RE series, Klein proposes a cosmic meaning. A sponge is shaped like an asteroid which was not altered by an atmosphere.
His monochromes are the elements of a trinity. His colors were the IKB, the madder pink and the gold. More appealing than the three classical primary colors, these colors express separately the properties of the universe before being mixed by the action of water and fire.
He then creates a new world full of these strange figures pushing him in the following of the mineral landscapes of Tanguy. But Tanguy died in 1955, and the space conquest had meanwhile generated its imaginary craters and lifeless rocks.
In 1961 in Krefeld, an exhibition demonstrates the clash of colors of Klein's trinity by attributing a different room to each color. Two artworks made in 1960 are particularly highlighted. Both were made in dry synthetic resin, natural sponges and pebbles on board.
The blue room is dominated by Archisponge, 200 x 165 cm, which was sold for $ 21.4M by Sotheby's in 2008.
On June 27, 2012, Christie's sold for £ 23.5M the masterpiece of the pink room, 199 x 153 x 16 cm, lot 9. Its mysterious title, Le Rose du Bleu, does not doubt the purity of the madder pigment but reveals that the artist attempts a unified vision of his Pink with the immaterial symbol of his basic Blue. Please watch the video prepared by Christie's.
2
1960 Archisponge (RE 11)
2008 SOLD for $ 21.4M by Sotheby's
Archisponge was sold for $ 21.4M on November 11, 2008 by Sotheby's, lot 12.
This artwork on panel 200 x 165 cm executed in 1960 in IKB, sponges and pebbles had been the masterpiece of the blue room in the 1961 Krefeld exhibition. That central room was flanked by the pink and gold rooms. Le Rose du bleu, of same size and technique as the Archisponge, was the flagship the pink room.
The artist had of course be the designer of that arrangement. Nevertheless his proposal for a performance of his own Symphonie Monotone Silence during the opening day was not retained.
This artwork on panel 200 x 165 cm executed in 1960 in IKB, sponges and pebbles had been the masterpiece of the blue room in the 1961 Krefeld exhibition. That central room was flanked by the pink and gold rooms. Le Rose du bleu, of same size and technique as the Archisponge, was the flagship the pink room.
The artist had of course be the designer of that arrangement. Nevertheless his proposal for a performance of his own Symphonie Monotone Silence during the opening day was not retained.
(1930) posthumous 1978 Back IV by Matisse
2010 SOLD for $ 49M by Christie's
In 1906, Matisse designs an original theme of sculpture: a nude woman standing, life size, seen from behind, leaning against a wall. The subject fascinated him to such a degree that he created three further versions, in 1913, 1916 and 1930. Psychoanalysts could probably tell us the reason of that backside position.
These four naked Backs are changing from realism to stylization, from flexibility to a balance of the masses. The last state is broad and symmetrical, the body barred from head to buttocks by a vertical braid that resembles the tail of a heavy horse.
Twelve bronzes were published from each of the four plasters between 1948 and 1981. On November 3, 2010, Christie's sold for $ 49M from a lower estimate of $ 25M a bronze of the Back IV, 189 cm high with a brown patina, cast in 1978.
These four naked Backs are changing from realism to stylization, from flexibility to a balance of the masses. The last state is broad and symmetrical, the body barred from head to buttocks by a vertical braid that resembles the tail of a heavy horse.
Twelve bronzes were published from each of the four plasters between 1948 and 1981. On November 3, 2010, Christie's sold for $ 49M from a lower estimate of $ 25M a bronze of the Back IV, 189 cm high with a brown patina, cast in 1978.
1997 Spider by Bourgeois
1
2/6
2019 SOLD for $ 32M by Christie's
Louise Bourgeois desired to interpret her relationship with her own parents, generating a suffering that she appeased by her art at the borderline of sexual provocation. From 1951 to 1980 she tries a psychoanalysis. It is a failure : she considers that Freud does not propose anything for the artists.
She left many writings about her own art but it remains difficult to find the key. The relationship between sex and family, the position of the child within the family unit, are the highly traumatic guides to her creativity. Until 98 years old, she will be an activist in support to all the sexual minorities.
She is already an octogenarian when she develops the theme of the spider. By entitling Maman her most mesmerizing spiders, she seems to clarify her most intimate desire but in reality she blurs it with complacency.
The world of a real spider is certainly of high complexity. It (she) is patient, steady in the center of her web which she builds and efficiently repairs after a destruction. The polygon of her eight legs offers a shelter for her loved ones, but she is also a fierce predator to the insects. Her small size makes her vulnerable but the artist will enlarge it to make her the towering star of a dehumanized parallel universe.
The spider is not a vertebrate and her behavioral psychology is inaccessible. She amazed those who approached her since the mythological times. By choosing this beast as a symbol of motherhood, Louise Bourgeois is not an artist of animals but indeed a highly disturbing surrealist artist in the line of Wifredo Lam.
Within her old age, Louise Bourgeois remained hypersensitive to sexual ambiguity and sexual promiscuity. On October 15, 2015, Sotheby's sold for £ 1.2M a showcase realized in 2001 titled Mother and child, exhibiting a limp infant on the nude torso of a woman like some externalization of pregnancy. The carefully carved body of Bourgeois's spiders is certainly another female carnal and Freudian symbol.
In 1994 she builds a small steel spider 28 cm high which carries marble eggs in a bag under its body. This symbol of maternity breaks with the artist's earlier assimilation of the spider with a prostitute. This sculpture, one of the first by Bourgeois on this theme, passed at Sotheby's on November 11, 2015 from a lower estimate of $ 4M.
In the following year, at the age of 84, she suddenly appreciates that the spider's maternal function will solve her fantasies. She sculpts new steel spiders and edits them in bronze, in various configurations : lowered body for climbing on the wall or raised on its tall thin legs.
The perimeter of the legs is the safety zone offered by the mother to her offspring. The comparison with the Lupa Capitolina suckling Romulus and Remus is relevant. The spiders of Louise Bourgeois personify her own mother, too frail but intensely protective. The gigantic dimension of the sculptures, culminating in 1999 with a 10 m high Maman, solves this contradiction. Maman carries her eggs as in the original spider five years earlier.
A spider 6.68 x 6.33 m for 3.38 m high cast in 1996 was sold for $ 10.7M by Christie's on November 8, 2011.
A spider 3.26 m high on a 7.56 x 7.06 m overall perimeter designed in 1996 was sculpted in steel and cast in bronze in 1997 in six copies plus one artist's proof and one variant in bronze. The number 3/6 was sold for $ 28M by Christie's on November 10, 2015, lot 10B. The 2/6 was sold for $ 32M by Christie's on May 15, 2019, lot 21 B.
She left many writings about her own art but it remains difficult to find the key. The relationship between sex and family, the position of the child within the family unit, are the highly traumatic guides to her creativity. Until 98 years old, she will be an activist in support to all the sexual minorities.
She is already an octogenarian when she develops the theme of the spider. By entitling Maman her most mesmerizing spiders, she seems to clarify her most intimate desire but in reality she blurs it with complacency.
The world of a real spider is certainly of high complexity. It (she) is patient, steady in the center of her web which she builds and efficiently repairs after a destruction. The polygon of her eight legs offers a shelter for her loved ones, but she is also a fierce predator to the insects. Her small size makes her vulnerable but the artist will enlarge it to make her the towering star of a dehumanized parallel universe.
The spider is not a vertebrate and her behavioral psychology is inaccessible. She amazed those who approached her since the mythological times. By choosing this beast as a symbol of motherhood, Louise Bourgeois is not an artist of animals but indeed a highly disturbing surrealist artist in the line of Wifredo Lam.
Within her old age, Louise Bourgeois remained hypersensitive to sexual ambiguity and sexual promiscuity. On October 15, 2015, Sotheby's sold for £ 1.2M a showcase realized in 2001 titled Mother and child, exhibiting a limp infant on the nude torso of a woman like some externalization of pregnancy. The carefully carved body of Bourgeois's spiders is certainly another female carnal and Freudian symbol.
In 1994 she builds a small steel spider 28 cm high which carries marble eggs in a bag under its body. This symbol of maternity breaks with the artist's earlier assimilation of the spider with a prostitute. This sculpture, one of the first by Bourgeois on this theme, passed at Sotheby's on November 11, 2015 from a lower estimate of $ 4M.
In the following year, at the age of 84, she suddenly appreciates that the spider's maternal function will solve her fantasies. She sculpts new steel spiders and edits them in bronze, in various configurations : lowered body for climbing on the wall or raised on its tall thin legs.
The perimeter of the legs is the safety zone offered by the mother to her offspring. The comparison with the Lupa Capitolina suckling Romulus and Remus is relevant. The spiders of Louise Bourgeois personify her own mother, too frail but intensely protective. The gigantic dimension of the sculptures, culminating in 1999 with a 10 m high Maman, solves this contradiction. Maman carries her eggs as in the original spider five years earlier.
A spider 6.68 x 6.33 m for 3.38 m high cast in 1996 was sold for $ 10.7M by Christie's on November 8, 2011.
A spider 3.26 m high on a 7.56 x 7.06 m overall perimeter designed in 1996 was sculpted in steel and cast in bronze in 1997 in six copies plus one artist's proof and one variant in bronze. The number 3/6 was sold for $ 28M by Christie's on November 10, 2015, lot 10B. The 2/6 was sold for $ 32M by Christie's on May 15, 2019, lot 21 B.
2
3/6
2015 SOLD for $ 28M by Christie's
On November 10, 2015, Christie's sold for $ 28M the copy 3/6 of the 7.56 x 7.06 x 3.26 m bronze Spider edited in 1997 by Louise Bourgeois. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
