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拍品专文
This work is sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by Adriana Williams and dated 18 September 2011.
Miguel Covarrubias was Mexico's Renaissance man of the 20th Century. He began his career as a caricaturist, illustrator, and painter. In the 1930s, he journeyed to Bali, Indonesia on his honeymoon with Rosa. On the first of two trips to the island in the fall of 1930, the couple stopped in China for several weeks. While there, the artist made many sketches and drawings. Some appeared in The China I Knew penned by Rosa Covarrubias. These drawings, and China Girl (lot 190) in the present auction, demonstrate the elegance and purity of his stylized line and plane.
Inspired by life in Bali, Covarrubias created an impressive body of artwork and carried out research for his book about the island's culture. Island of Bali, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1937, is still the indispensable work regarding the island and launched him on his career as a writer, ethnologist, anthropologist and other notable endeavors.
Covarrubias' capacity for understanding Balinese art as it was translated into rituals and festivals, as well as his ability to communicate dance and music in visual terms were of great importance. This can be appreciated in Legong Performance Under Banyan Tree. The Legong is a dance/drama, the most ethereal and abstract of any in Bali. At the time of Covarrubias' stay in Bali, it was performed exclusively by little girls and was much loved by the artist.
There are two nearly identical versions of this work: the exquisite gouache in the present auction and a gouache done on celluloid to illustrate an article in The American Magazine in April of 1940.
Adriana Williams.
Miguel Covarrubias was Mexico's Renaissance man of the 20th Century. He began his career as a caricaturist, illustrator, and painter. In the 1930s, he journeyed to Bali, Indonesia on his honeymoon with Rosa. On the first of two trips to the island in the fall of 1930, the couple stopped in China for several weeks. While there, the artist made many sketches and drawings. Some appeared in The China I Knew penned by Rosa Covarrubias. These drawings, and China Girl (lot 190) in the present auction, demonstrate the elegance and purity of his stylized line and plane.
Inspired by life in Bali, Covarrubias created an impressive body of artwork and carried out research for his book about the island's culture. Island of Bali, published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1937, is still the indispensable work regarding the island and launched him on his career as a writer, ethnologist, anthropologist and other notable endeavors.
Covarrubias' capacity for understanding Balinese art as it was translated into rituals and festivals, as well as his ability to communicate dance and music in visual terms were of great importance. This can be appreciated in Legong Performance Under Banyan Tree. The Legong is a dance/drama, the most ethereal and abstract of any in Bali. At the time of Covarrubias' stay in Bali, it was performed exclusively by little girls and was much loved by the artist.
There are two nearly identical versions of this work: the exquisite gouache in the present auction and a gouache done on celluloid to illustrate an article in The American Magazine in April of 1940.
Adriana Williams.