Jacques Lipchitz

bronze
height: 91.4cm.
Conceived in 1917 and cast in bronze in an edition of 7.

Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., New York

Pierre Schlumberger (acquired from the above circa 1967)

Paul-Albert Schlumberger

Acquired from the above byt the present owner in 1996

Alan G. Wilkinson, The Sculpture of Jacques Lipchitz, A Catalogue Raisonné, Volume One, The Paris Years 1910 – 1940, London, 1996, no. 67, illustrated p. 48

Very good condition. The bronze bears a uniform brown patina, with no scratches or losses. The bronze is structurally sound. The stone base upon which the sculpture is currently affixed is slightly weathered and bears scuffs and losses throughout.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The present work is one of Lipchitz's best known Cubist sculptures, created at the end of the War.  The subject was inspired by the scene in Mallorca of a young sailor dancing around a pretty girl and playing the guitar, he made several drawings of this subject, and executed his first version of the theme in 1914 and returning to it in 1917 for the creation of the present sculpture.

A.M. Hammacher described the origins of this work:  "In 1914 Lipchitz made toreador figures, dancers and the important Sailor with Guitar.  This last was the result of his watching with amusement and fascination a sailor with a guitar dancing around an attractive girl.  Years later he could still remember the sailor's trousers rolled up above his knee and his cap at a jaunty angle, details from a reality that passes over into the unreality of a spatial image, in which memories disappear, anatomy no longer exists and curves, straight lines and taut planes exert a mutual influence on each other and form a totally new organism.  The guitar has become a centre, a nodal point of forms, which meet each other there and which together determine the total play of light and shadow on a free, rhythmic basis" (A.M. Hammacher, Lipchitz in Otterlo (exhibition catalogue), Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller, Otterlo, 1977, n.p.)

Images of mandolin or guitar players figured largely in Lipchitz’s production during and after the First World War.  The subject was not uncommon among the Cubists, but Lipchitz was one of the few artists to render this figure as a man.  The gender choice is important to note, as the abstraction of the male body was a rare subject for artists of this era.  Lipchitz, however, fully explored the aesthetic potential of the masculine form, using broad, angular forms and sharp angles to render the powerful body. 

Lipchitz first rendered this figure in a stone version in 1917, and that sculpture is now in the collection of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.  Not long after moving to New York in the 1940s, Lipchitz had the sculpture cast in bronze by the Modern Art Foundry in Long Island City in an edition of 7, and another cast from this edition is in the collection of the Stedelijk van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven.