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拍品专文
Commissioned by the Daily Telegraph Magazine in 1967, The Right Honorable Harold Wilson is one of several sculptures by Venezuelan-American artist Marisol (1930-2016) that depicts contemporary political figures. The magazine originally requested figures of the British royal family and the current prime minister, though Marisol insisted on including Lyndon B. Johnson, Francisco Franco, and Charles de Gaulle. Collectively, the series was exhibited as Figures of State. The present figure, Harold Wilson, was a two-time Prime Minister for the Labour party who brought sweeping reforms in areas of civil liberties, social security, education, healthcare, housing, and worker’s rights.
Marisol worked amongst the Abstract Expressionists in the 1950s but was overshadowed until she ultimately found her place in the Pop Art scene of the 1960s when she began making figural assemblages. Drawing upon folk, pre-Columbian, Cubist, and Dadaist influences, Marisol’s sculptures defy any single classification. Inspired by Robert Rauschenberg, she began making assemblages, incorporating found objects, plaster casts, and collage into her wooden sculptures. Though her work had little to do with commercialism, Marisol developed friendships with pop artists like Warhol and Lichtenstein. She found comradery in their similar processes of manipulating imagery, frequently reframing, cropping, enlarging, replicating and mimicking existing images. Through these methods, as well as the company she kept, her work has been counted amongst that of the Pop Art greats.
Blocky figures with sculpted elements and recognizable faces became Marisol’s style. The Right Honorable Harold Wilson exemplifies this with its large block body, sculpted to suggest a sizable chest and painted in a classic suit. Marisol’s wooden, boxy bodies have a weight that give a sense that they are stagnant, immovable and inhuman. Douglas Dreishpoon elaborates on the emotional impact of this choice of medium as "a way of simplifying and consolidating her sculptural process. Marisol's sculptural portraits are bound to the block, which becomes a silent but commanding foil for a dialect between something private and public, illusionistic and literal" (D. Dreishpoon, "Marisol Portrait Sculpture," Art Journal, Winter 1991, p. 95).This contrasted with their realistically depicted faces, in the present lot, on sculpted wood, providing a comical element to the work. This humor can also be seen in the small hand raising out of Wilson’s shoulder. This waving hand hints at his character and persona as a “man of the people.” Though Marisol’s work was often humorous, she tackled austere subjects, as seen here in the Figures of State series. The strength of the work comes from her ability to balance both: “Marisol’s art has always had wit, but she’s dead serious. She brings a complexity to her work, which has a sobering gravity. She’s an original,” (G. Segal quoted in Magical Mixtures: Marisol Portrait Sculpture, Washington, D.C., 1991, p. 9).
Marisol worked amongst the Abstract Expressionists in the 1950s but was overshadowed until she ultimately found her place in the Pop Art scene of the 1960s when she began making figural assemblages. Drawing upon folk, pre-Columbian, Cubist, and Dadaist influences, Marisol’s sculptures defy any single classification. Inspired by Robert Rauschenberg, she began making assemblages, incorporating found objects, plaster casts, and collage into her wooden sculptures. Though her work had little to do with commercialism, Marisol developed friendships with pop artists like Warhol and Lichtenstein. She found comradery in their similar processes of manipulating imagery, frequently reframing, cropping, enlarging, replicating and mimicking existing images. Through these methods, as well as the company she kept, her work has been counted amongst that of the Pop Art greats.
Blocky figures with sculpted elements and recognizable faces became Marisol’s style. The Right Honorable Harold Wilson exemplifies this with its large block body, sculpted to suggest a sizable chest and painted in a classic suit. Marisol’s wooden, boxy bodies have a weight that give a sense that they are stagnant, immovable and inhuman. Douglas Dreishpoon elaborates on the emotional impact of this choice of medium as "a way of simplifying and consolidating her sculptural process. Marisol's sculptural portraits are bound to the block, which becomes a silent but commanding foil for a dialect between something private and public, illusionistic and literal" (D. Dreishpoon, "Marisol Portrait Sculpture," Art Journal, Winter 1991, p. 95).This contrasted with their realistically depicted faces, in the present lot, on sculpted wood, providing a comical element to the work. This humor can also be seen in the small hand raising out of Wilson’s shoulder. This waving hand hints at his character and persona as a “man of the people.” Though Marisol’s work was often humorous, she tackled austere subjects, as seen here in the Figures of State series. The strength of the work comes from her ability to balance both: “Marisol’s art has always had wit, but she’s dead serious. She brings a complexity to her work, which has a sobering gravity. She’s an original,” (G. Segal quoted in Magical Mixtures: Marisol Portrait Sculpture, Washington, D.C., 1991, p. 9).