Kenneth Armitage 1916-2002

bidding is closed

Description

Kenneth Armitage CBE, RA
Pandarus
signed with initials, inscribed A HANS NEUMANN and dated 1964
bronze with a dark brown patina
height 168cm., 66in.

Provenance

Cast for Hans Neumann, 1964
Private Collection

Literature

Ediciones Museo de Bellas Arts, Armitage y 8 Escultores Venezolanos, June 1964, illustrated on the cover (the other cast);
Begica Rodriguez, Breve Historia de la Escultura Contemporanea de Venezuela, Ediciones Fundarte, 1971, p.41;
Tamsyn Woollcombe (ed.) in association with the Artist, Kenneth Armitage: Life and Work, Henry Moore Foundation in association with Lund Humphries, London, 1997, p.72, 90 and 146.

Catalogue Note

Conceived in 1964 and cast in an edition of 2 by the Campanella Foundry, Caracas.

In 1963 Armitage was invited to visit Venezuela by Miguel Aroyo, Director of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas, to help expand the international awareness of the local sculptors. The trip was funded jointly by the British Council and the wealthy Venezualan collector Hans Neumann. Although Armitage did not wish to teach or give lectures, he was keen to work together with a group of the best sculptors in an environment conducive to the exchange of ideas (and, on a separate matter, he was interested in the idea of meeting the forest Indians).

The first work that Armitage undertook while in Venezuela was an additional version of Pandarus, a theme that he had been working on since 1962. In Shakespeare's 'Troilus and Cressida', the unscrupulous Pandarus, uncle of Cressida, acts as the go-between for his niece and her lover, while also operating as a voyeuristic commentator on the action. Sir Alan Bowness has suggested (in his introduction to the Arts Council exhibition catalogue, Kenneth Armitage, 1972-3) that the Pandarus figures not only convey an outward message but may also be regarded as a 'probing kind of self portraiture'. This particular version he intended to be cast only once for the for the Museo de Bellas Artes. However, when Neumann requested that another cast be made for his own collection, they agreed that instead of Armitage receiving payment for this second cast, the money would be donated to the local sculptors in the form of an Armitage 'Fundacio'.