Henri Laurens

Paris, Galerie Louise Leiris, Henri Laurens: Sculptures en Pierre 1919-1943, 1958, no. 18
New York, Elkon Gallery, Masters of the Twentieth Century, 2001, no. 3

During the 1920s the female form was Laurens' most popular subject.  His sculptures of this period demonstrate a more graceful style than did his geometric Cubist compositions of the prior decade.  The present work, which Laurens carved in 1927, depicts a female nude who is reclining on top of billowing drapery.    The artist also executed a similar work in terra cotta that same year, but the smooth curvature of the figure's form is rendered more sensually here in stone. 

Laurens' dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, wrote the following about these female figures of the 1920s: "The appearance of curvilinear forms in Laurens' work in no way signalled a renunciation of Cubism, but was a part of a normal evolution toward a new orientation.  It may be the economic situation affected the artist's work, but Laurens' artistic integrity made it impossible for him to accept a commission that did not accord with his own intentions" (quoted in Werner Hofmann, The Sculpture of Henri Laurens, New York, 1970, p. 49).