Patinated bronze, stone base; height: 57 cm, height with base: 64 cm;
On the reverse: CIRE PERDUE [lost wax] and J. LAMY / FONDEUR. PARIS;
late 20th century cast.
This sculpture by an unspecified artist, made in a Paris foundry, alludes in form to the works of Katarzyna Kobro (1898-1951). So far, analogous geometrized female figures, like the one offered in this catalog, have appeared at foreign auctions with K. Kobro's authorship indicated. This attribution has not been confirmed so far, and there is no documentation related to the origin of the work. However, it is worth considering the purchase of the offered figure, characterized by a cubist form in the type of work of the doyenne of avant-garde and constructivist art, with the hope that perhaps someday there will be irrefutable evidence of the artist's authorship.
In 1948 Katarzyna Kobro, with the cooperation of a modeler, created four plaster models - representations of nude female nudes. These figures, with much more geometrized shapes compared to the forms created in the 1920s, were called "leisure" art by her (I sculpt from nature the way one goes to the movies to better relax. I like to entertain myself by improving what has not been completed in any direction of old art. /Katarzyna Kobro, 1933/), created without sketches or prior studies. It is likely that the model, for all four representations, was the artist's neighbor Zofia Wierzbowska. The female figures, according to the plaster casts of Katarzyna Kobro, have so far been cast in two factories, the vast majority of them in the Clementi factory near Paris, each time with the knowledge of the heir to the copyright of her mother's work - Nika Strzeminska (the first around 1987). The bronze pieces from J. Lama's foundry are therefore unusual.
The storage location of at least two of the remaining plaster casts of Katarzyna Kobro and their casts, along with information on the edition, is known and is indicated by catalog cards from the National Museum in Warsaw and the Museum of Art in Lodz, where the bulk of the sculptor's confirmed artistic output is located. The Lodz museum also received as a legacy the collection of the "a.r." art group, whose founder and founder, among others, was Katarzyna Kobro.