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Lot Essay
Executed in 1919, La femme à la guitare belongs amongst Henri Laurens' first Cubist works to be sculpted fully in the round, and arguably ranks as one of his finest sculptures. Laurens became an early adherent of Cubist aesthetics shortly after forming a close friendship with Braque in 1911, initially engaging the geometrical analysis of form in constructions comprised of complex intersections of thin planes of wood or metal. After this period of experimentation, Laurens returned to traditional sculptural techniques in 1918, using the method of direct carving in stone to interpret the multidimensional forms of his constructions into a single dense core.
Like other celebrated Laurens sculptures from this period, such as Homme avec le Clarinet, (1919, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington) and Femme á l'oiseau (1921-22, Centre George Pompidou, Paris), La femme à la guitare simplifies the typical Cubist motifs of the human figure and still life to create a rigorous architectonic structure broken but not divided by angles and planes. This unified and clearly articulated planar system is devised to preserve the frontality of the object, and yet, through its variation of angles and the interpenetration of one form by another, Laurens succeeds in persuading the eye to move around the entire mass. The tilted surfaces and austere geometric volumes of La femme à la guitare reassemble dramatically different aspects of his subject, providing a variety of visual experiences that is perfectly complimented by the light harnessing quality of the delicately pitted white stone. Laurens' virtues as a sculptor were even praised by Giacometti, who described him as, 'one of those rare sculptors who render what I experience in front of living reality, and that is why I find a likeness in his sculpture, a likeness which gives me reason to love and admire it', (cited in D. Cooper, The Cubist Epoch, London, 1999, p. 262).
La femme à la guitare has passed through the hands of some of the most prestigious art dealers of the Twentieth Century and was first acquired by L©eonce Rosenberg's progressive and influential Galerie de l'Effort Moderne immediately after its completion. The sculpture was then eventually purchased by Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, who sold his collection and the Galerie Simon to Louise Leiris before fleeing to Switzerland following of the Nazi occupation of Paris. The sculpture subsequently was acquired by a private collector with whom it has remained for the past fifty years.
Like other celebrated Laurens sculptures from this period, such as Homme avec le Clarinet, (1919, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington) and Femme á l'oiseau (1921-22, Centre George Pompidou, Paris), La femme à la guitare simplifies the typical Cubist motifs of the human figure and still life to create a rigorous architectonic structure broken but not divided by angles and planes. This unified and clearly articulated planar system is devised to preserve the frontality of the object, and yet, through its variation of angles and the interpenetration of one form by another, Laurens succeeds in persuading the eye to move around the entire mass. The tilted surfaces and austere geometric volumes of La femme à la guitare reassemble dramatically different aspects of his subject, providing a variety of visual experiences that is perfectly complimented by the light harnessing quality of the delicately pitted white stone. Laurens' virtues as a sculptor were even praised by Giacometti, who described him as, 'one of those rare sculptors who render what I experience in front of living reality, and that is why I find a likeness in his sculpture, a likeness which gives me reason to love and admire it', (cited in D. Cooper, The Cubist Epoch, London, 1999, p. 262).
La femme à la guitare has passed through the hands of some of the most prestigious art dealers of the Twentieth Century and was first acquired by L©eonce Rosenberg's progressive and influential Galerie de l'Effort Moderne immediately after its completion. The sculpture was then eventually purchased by Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, who sold his collection and the Galerie Simon to Louise Leiris before fleeing to Switzerland following of the Nazi occupation of Paris. The sculpture subsequently was acquired by a private collector with whom it has remained for the past fifty years.