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Lot Essay
A COLLECTOR'S EYE
Jerry Ganz was a highly successful entrepreneur who achieved fame with the marketing of retractable seatbelts to the automobile industry. He leveraged his success in business to become an avid art collector in numerous categories, amassing a collection with a focus on sculpture and sculptural design, rooted in an appreciation for rigorous materiality.
Mr. Ganz appreciated the strong, geometric lines and aesthetics of the Bauhaus, and in 1959 he moved into Mies van der Rohe’s iconic residential masterpiece, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Collecting became his hobby for the next 70 years and he drew immense pleasure being surrounded by his collection. The public sculpture, museums and modern architecture of Chicago inspired his collecting, cultivating an attraction to urban materials such as bronze, stainless steel, granite and marble.
Jerry Ganz cultivated this unique sensibility and developed an attraction to art by Alberto and Diego Giacometti, Arnoldo Pomodoro, Fernando Botero, Scott Burton, Jean Arp and Sam Francis. Jerry Ganz was fortunate to enjoy a friendly relationship with several artists including Pomodoro, visiting with him at his studio in Milan.
The sculptural furniture of Alberto and Diego Giacometti had a particular resonance with Ganz who took great delight in the functionality and usefulness of the works, striking a balance between a timeless, old-world aesthetic and the zeitgeist of the avant-garde.
THE CARYATIDES
Diego Giacometti’s rare and sophisticated ‘Caryatides’ design is a timeless nod to beautiful form and practical function. The table of grand scale presents stepped rectangular feet below slender columnar supports ornamented with ringed registers and a pseudo-capital at the topmost edge. These architectural elements signal an appreciation for foundation and structure, furthermore the added element of the ‘Caryatides’ adorning the four supports buttresses an appreciation of antiquity and cultural history. From ancient Greece to early modern acropolises, Cycladic sculptures have had tremendous influence on art and architecture around the world.
Diego Giacometti’s furniture designs have graced the grand Parisian salons such as that of Marguerite and Aimé Maeght, Swiss gallerists living in Paris, and the late fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy. Giacometti often took commissions from wealthy patrons for functional art for their homes. In fact, the renowned French interior designer Henri Samuel was a major supporter of Diego’s work and endeavored to include his designs in several commissions for interiors both in Europe and abroad in America where his popularity was on the rise after designing the Jayne Wrightsman Galleries for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Samuel was integral to the bourgeoning art scene in Paris via a mentorship with Arthur Aeschbacher, an emerging artist who encircled the contemporary galleries of the time such as Alexander Iolas, Marion Meyer and Dina Vierny. Samuel enjoyed engaging with the modern art world where he was able to commission works by young and struggling artists, in hopes of supporting their nascent careers. While Samuel was designing for the upper echelons of society, including the Rothschilds and Jacqueline Delubac, he was simultaneously catapulting artists to notoriety by including their designs amongst the fashionable crowd.
While Diego Giacometti was already established as an important artist of the time, his work for Henri Samuel remained constant and symbiotic. The model for the rare Caryatides table presented here is said to have been commissioned by Henri Samuel, for his rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré apartment in 1976. Along with the clear architectural appreciations on display, Giacometti incorporated his habitual celebration of nature in the form of a bird gracefully atop a stretcher. The figure with wings outstretched and slight tilt to the body is reminiscent of a the bird landing from flight, and when witnessed beneath the glass top and amongst the shadows cast, brings the assemblage to life.
Today, Diego Giacometti furniture designs are placed by renown interior designers for important commissions the world around. The Musée Picasso in Paris celebrates the designs by Diego Giacometti by displaying amongst important fine art in an 17th century landmarked Mazarin building. The seamless transition from antiquity to modernity is clearly on display within this space by way of Giacometti’s designs that establish and maintain a constant conversation with all elements of an interior – the genius of an architect and artist who will outlast definitions of time.
Jerry Ganz was a highly successful entrepreneur who achieved fame with the marketing of retractable seatbelts to the automobile industry. He leveraged his success in business to become an avid art collector in numerous categories, amassing a collection with a focus on sculpture and sculptural design, rooted in an appreciation for rigorous materiality.
Mr. Ganz appreciated the strong, geometric lines and aesthetics of the Bauhaus, and in 1959 he moved into Mies van der Rohe’s iconic residential masterpiece, 860-880 Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. Collecting became his hobby for the next 70 years and he drew immense pleasure being surrounded by his collection. The public sculpture, museums and modern architecture of Chicago inspired his collecting, cultivating an attraction to urban materials such as bronze, stainless steel, granite and marble.
Jerry Ganz cultivated this unique sensibility and developed an attraction to art by Alberto and Diego Giacometti, Arnoldo Pomodoro, Fernando Botero, Scott Burton, Jean Arp and Sam Francis. Jerry Ganz was fortunate to enjoy a friendly relationship with several artists including Pomodoro, visiting with him at his studio in Milan.
The sculptural furniture of Alberto and Diego Giacometti had a particular resonance with Ganz who took great delight in the functionality and usefulness of the works, striking a balance between a timeless, old-world aesthetic and the zeitgeist of the avant-garde.
THE CARYATIDES
Diego Giacometti’s rare and sophisticated ‘Caryatides’ design is a timeless nod to beautiful form and practical function. The table of grand scale presents stepped rectangular feet below slender columnar supports ornamented with ringed registers and a pseudo-capital at the topmost edge. These architectural elements signal an appreciation for foundation and structure, furthermore the added element of the ‘Caryatides’ adorning the four supports buttresses an appreciation of antiquity and cultural history. From ancient Greece to early modern acropolises, Cycladic sculptures have had tremendous influence on art and architecture around the world.
Diego Giacometti’s furniture designs have graced the grand Parisian salons such as that of Marguerite and Aimé Maeght, Swiss gallerists living in Paris, and the late fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy. Giacometti often took commissions from wealthy patrons for functional art for their homes. In fact, the renowned French interior designer Henri Samuel was a major supporter of Diego’s work and endeavored to include his designs in several commissions for interiors both in Europe and abroad in America where his popularity was on the rise after designing the Jayne Wrightsman Galleries for the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Samuel was integral to the bourgeoning art scene in Paris via a mentorship with Arthur Aeschbacher, an emerging artist who encircled the contemporary galleries of the time such as Alexander Iolas, Marion Meyer and Dina Vierny. Samuel enjoyed engaging with the modern art world where he was able to commission works by young and struggling artists, in hopes of supporting their nascent careers. While Samuel was designing for the upper echelons of society, including the Rothschilds and Jacqueline Delubac, he was simultaneously catapulting artists to notoriety by including their designs amongst the fashionable crowd.
While Diego Giacometti was already established as an important artist of the time, his work for Henri Samuel remained constant and symbiotic. The model for the rare Caryatides table presented here is said to have been commissioned by Henri Samuel, for his rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré apartment in 1976. Along with the clear architectural appreciations on display, Giacometti incorporated his habitual celebration of nature in the form of a bird gracefully atop a stretcher. The figure with wings outstretched and slight tilt to the body is reminiscent of a the bird landing from flight, and when witnessed beneath the glass top and amongst the shadows cast, brings the assemblage to life.
Today, Diego Giacometti furniture designs are placed by renown interior designers for important commissions the world around. The Musée Picasso in Paris celebrates the designs by Diego Giacometti by displaying amongst important fine art in an 17th century landmarked Mazarin building. The seamless transition from antiquity to modernity is clearly on display within this space by way of Giacometti’s designs that establish and maintain a constant conversation with all elements of an interior – the genius of an architect and artist who will outlast definitions of time.