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Lot Essay
We thank the Fondation Arp, Clamart, for their help cataloguing this work.
After devoting himself principally to relief sculpture throughout his Dada and Surrealist years, Arp found himself by 1930 increasingly drawn to the expanded volumes of sculpture in the round. Transforming the flat, biomorphic shapes of his earlier reliefs into fully fledged, standing sculptural creations, Arp arrived at a language of burgeoning, organic forms that served as the wellspring of his art for the remaining three decades of his career. He rooted his creative activity in principles of ceaseless metamorphosis that echo the generative and evolutionary processes of nature itself, continually recasting his elemental motifs into new, vital forms that suggest both human and vegetal affinities.
In the present sculpture, Arp interpreted the theme of growth and renewal through the trope of the classical Greek earth-mother Demeter, goddess of agriculture, who governed the cycle of the seasons. “She with the beautiful garlands in her hair,” reads the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, “sent up the harvest from the land with its rich clods of earth. And all the wide earth with leaves and blossoms was laden” (lines 470-473; trans. Gregory Nagy). Ever since his second trip to Greece in 1955, Arp had frequently incorporated classical motifs—distilled and abstracted—into his sculptural language. Here, Arp conceived the seated figure of Demeter, devoted mother of Persephone, in sensuous, swelling volumes. Her lap is a site of maternal nurturing; the wide hips evoke abundant fertility, while the tilted head suggests protective care. At the same time, the sculpture may be read as a germinating plant, with new growth unfurling upward from the cleft in the seed.
Additional inspiration for Déméter may have come during a trip that Arp took in 1960 to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel—part of the Fertile Crescent, where agriculture first flourished and the earliest human civilizations hence took root. Ancient female “fertility figurines” from the region—variously interpreted as votive offerings, ritual objects, or representations of goddesses—exaggerate the breasts, belly, and thighs of the subject, embodying an essential, primordial connection between human motherhood and the earth’s fecundity that Arp revived in the present sculpture.
Arp initially conceived Déméter in 1960 at a height of 25 ¾ inches (65.4 cm.) the next year, he made a 39 ½ inch (100.3 cm.) enlargement, of which the present sculpture is the sole, unique example in marble. The smaller version of the figure is known in a single marble, an edition of five bronze casts, and a plaster model (Musée d’Art Moderne, Strasbourg). In addition to the present lot, the larger version exists in three bronzes and a plaster (Detroit Institute of Arts), with each material creating a different expressive effect. Polished to a smooth and subtly luminous surface, the white marble—quarried from the earth—that Arp selected for the present Déméter highlights the elemental purity of the forms and emphasizes their origin in the natural world.
After devoting himself principally to relief sculpture throughout his Dada and Surrealist years, Arp found himself by 1930 increasingly drawn to the expanded volumes of sculpture in the round. Transforming the flat, biomorphic shapes of his earlier reliefs into fully fledged, standing sculptural creations, Arp arrived at a language of burgeoning, organic forms that served as the wellspring of his art for the remaining three decades of his career. He rooted his creative activity in principles of ceaseless metamorphosis that echo the generative and evolutionary processes of nature itself, continually recasting his elemental motifs into new, vital forms that suggest both human and vegetal affinities.
In the present sculpture, Arp interpreted the theme of growth and renewal through the trope of the classical Greek earth-mother Demeter, goddess of agriculture, who governed the cycle of the seasons. “She with the beautiful garlands in her hair,” reads the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, “sent up the harvest from the land with its rich clods of earth. And all the wide earth with leaves and blossoms was laden” (lines 470-473; trans. Gregory Nagy). Ever since his second trip to Greece in 1955, Arp had frequently incorporated classical motifs—distilled and abstracted—into his sculptural language. Here, Arp conceived the seated figure of Demeter, devoted mother of Persephone, in sensuous, swelling volumes. Her lap is a site of maternal nurturing; the wide hips evoke abundant fertility, while the tilted head suggests protective care. At the same time, the sculpture may be read as a germinating plant, with new growth unfurling upward from the cleft in the seed.
Additional inspiration for Déméter may have come during a trip that Arp took in 1960 to Egypt, Jordan, and Israel—part of the Fertile Crescent, where agriculture first flourished and the earliest human civilizations hence took root. Ancient female “fertility figurines” from the region—variously interpreted as votive offerings, ritual objects, or representations of goddesses—exaggerate the breasts, belly, and thighs of the subject, embodying an essential, primordial connection between human motherhood and the earth’s fecundity that Arp revived in the present sculpture.
Arp initially conceived Déméter in 1960 at a height of 25 ¾ inches (65.4 cm.) the next year, he made a 39 ½ inch (100.3 cm.) enlargement, of which the present sculpture is the sole, unique example in marble. The smaller version of the figure is known in a single marble, an edition of five bronze casts, and a plaster model (Musée d’Art Moderne, Strasbourg). In addition to the present lot, the larger version exists in three bronzes and a plaster (Detroit Institute of Arts), with each material creating a different expressive effect. Polished to a smooth and subtly luminous surface, the white marble—quarried from the earth—that Arp selected for the present Déméter highlights the elemental purity of the forms and emphasizes their origin in the natural world.