Henri Laurens

Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris (acquired from the artist)
Waddington Galleries, London
Acquired from the above on November 6, 1980

 “Henri Laurens,” Le Point, Lanzac par Souillac, July 1946, illustration of another cast p. 45
Henri Laurens (exhibition catalogue), Galerie Claude Bernard, Paris, 1960, illustration of another cast p. 25
Henri Laurens (exhibition catalogue), Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1967, no. 83, illustration of another cast
Werner Hofmann, The Sculpture of Henri Laurens, New York, 1970, illustrations of other casts pp. 33 and 193
Henri Laurens: bronzes, collages, drawings, prints (exhibition catalogue), Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield; Dundee Museum; National Museum of Wales, Cardiff;  Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, 1971, illustration of another version in a photograph or artist’s studio on the frontispiece
Henri Laurens 1885-1954 (exhibition catalogue), Galerie Louise Leiris, Paris, 1985, no. 36, illustration of another cast p. 45

During the last years of his life, Laurens was particularly interested in allegorical themes as subjects for his art. In 1944, he executed a marble of a nude woman entitled L’Aurore (see fig. 1), a work he would also cast in bronze at a later date, and the present work is from that bronze edition.  The theme of sunrise rendered in the form of a woman was indeed a poignant selection for the seventy-five year old artist at the end of his life, and here it is executed with a notable vitality. To convey the sensation of transformation and awakening befitting the subject of dawn, Laurens strategically distributes weight and volume throughout the form, grounding the figure’s heavy legs and feet with the downward sloping curves while reversing the breasts, neck, head and arms in an upward direction. Laurens once commented, “I strive for the ripeness of forms- I would like to make them so full and luscious that nothing more could be added to them” (Werner Hoffman, op. cit., p. 32).

 

Although influenced by the voluptuous nudes of Maillol and Matisse, Laurens developed his own distinctive manner of portraying the female form. Combining organic volumes with energetic angles and curves, Laurens sculpture alludes to the Cubist penchant for deconstructing and recombining the composition. The dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler described this quality of Laurens' work: “The appearance of curvilinear forms in Laurens' work in no way signaled a renunciation of Cubism but was a part of normal evolution towards a new orientation” (ibid., p. 50).

Fig. 1, Henri Laurens, L’Aurore, marble, 1944, sold: Sotheby’s, May 8, 2002, lot 1, $400,000