Henri LAURENS (1885-1954) [FRANCE] - Lot 42

Henri LAURENS (1885-1954) [FRANCE] Stella (petite), 1933 Relief, brown patinated bronze proof. Valsuani lost-wax foundry stamp. Monogrammed and numbered lower left: H.L 0/6 42.8 x 37.6 x 6 cm Certificate of authenticity n°08958/7958 issued by Quentin Laurens for Galerie Louise Leiris, dated September 13, 2000. Provenance Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris, June 6, 2000. Bibliography : Henri Laurens, Exposition de la donation aux Musées Nationaux, May-August 1967, Paris, Grand Palais, a similar example is described and reproduced under no. 35. Henri Laurens is one of the artists who, through Cubism, contributed to the renewal of sculpture in the early 20th century. His female bodies, marked by the influence of Picasso and Léger, are characterized by solidly and rationally assembled geometric volumes. His highly original research also led him to use unusual materials, such as wood, sheet metal and rope. He also introduced polychromy, which he believed gave sculpture its light. From 1921 onwards, and especially from 1924, a number of amateurs asked the artist to create decorative sculptures for their homes. Until then, Laurens had only worked in the round. In 1933, he created the bas-relief "Flammes". This bas-relief fireback was commissioned by Helena Rubinstein, the famous perfume and cosmetics designer, to decorate her living room. Stella In 1933, architect André Lurçat, commissioned to create the Karl-Marx school complex in Villejuif, asked Laurens to create a monumental sculpture for a façade. This was to be "Stella", cast in aluminum, with our sculpture as the bronze reduction. The large and small Stella are marked by a softened, lyrical cubism: Laurens still translates the female body into simplified, solid volumes, but the joints of the limbs are softened and a lyrical fluidity runs through the sculpture. As early as 1932, Laurens had inaugurated his "Ondines", characterized by grace and lyrical movement. The sculptor Alberto Giacometti, who admired him greatly, wrote: "His way, even of breathing, of touching, of feeling, of thinking becomes object, becomes Sculpture."