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Lot Essay
Boris Lovet-Lorski was an Art Deco sculptor who trained at the Imperial Academy of Art in St. Petersburg, Russia. Russian by birth, he arrived in New York on May 16, 1920, and became a naturalized citizen in February 1925. He took pride in both his work and his citizenship, always insisting that his work be exhibited as American. After his first one-man show at the Grace Horn Gallery in Boston in 1925, the public widely recognized him as one of the most impressive sculptors of his time.
Lovet-Lorski poetically wrote, “With the help of a fragment, Just a small piece of sculpture, we can look into the past, or the present. We can look into a different world. A world of beauty, harmony and inner peace.” (as quoted in M.H. Bush, Boris Lovet-Lorski: The Language of Time, Syracuse, New York, 1967, p. 6) Reflecting these words, he drew inspiration from the romantic Gothic aesthetic he grew up with in Russia as well as from Ancient Crete and Greece. As exemplified by the present work, horses were one of Lovet-Lorski's favorite and most acclaimed subjects with which to explore and stylize these classical design elements. Martin H. Bush explains, "the inventive young artist had been experimenting with new concepts of form in linear designs of lyrical 'Cretan Dancers,' horses, and a rhythmical 'Diana.' They were thinner, flatter, and highly polished brass or bronze sculptures full of force and action, though distinctly decorative in quality...these dramatically new sculptures appealed to the critics. In reviewing a group exhibition at the Helen Hackett Galleries, Edward Alden Jewell of The New York Times (January 26, 1930) wrote that Lovet-Lorski 'is making a determined effort to stay in two dimensions. Pausing, eye captive to the grace of his panel of 'Stallions,' you do not ask for more.'" (Boris Lovet-Lorski: The Language of Time, pp. 54, 56)
Lovet-Lorski poetically wrote, “With the help of a fragment, Just a small piece of sculpture, we can look into the past, or the present. We can look into a different world. A world of beauty, harmony and inner peace.” (as quoted in M.H. Bush, Boris Lovet-Lorski: The Language of Time, Syracuse, New York, 1967, p. 6) Reflecting these words, he drew inspiration from the romantic Gothic aesthetic he grew up with in Russia as well as from Ancient Crete and Greece. As exemplified by the present work, horses were one of Lovet-Lorski's favorite and most acclaimed subjects with which to explore and stylize these classical design elements. Martin H. Bush explains, "the inventive young artist had been experimenting with new concepts of form in linear designs of lyrical 'Cretan Dancers,' horses, and a rhythmical 'Diana.' They were thinner, flatter, and highly polished brass or bronze sculptures full of force and action, though distinctly decorative in quality...these dramatically new sculptures appealed to the critics. In reviewing a group exhibition at the Helen Hackett Galleries, Edward Alden Jewell of The New York Times (January 26, 1930) wrote that Lovet-Lorski 'is making a determined effort to stay in two dimensions. Pausing, eye captive to the grace of his panel of 'Stallions,' you do not ask for more.'" (Boris Lovet-Lorski: The Language of Time, pp. 54, 56)