Lot 1
  • 1

Antony Gormley, R.A.

Estimate
6,000 - 8,000 GBP
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Description

  • Antony Gormley, R.A.
  • Insider 53
  • aniline dye, shellac, polyurethane varnish on paper

  • 76 by 57cm.; 30 by 22½in.
  • Executed in 1999.

Provenance

New Art Centre, Salisbury, where acquired by the present owner in November 2003

Condition

The sheet is sound and has been stuck to the backing with adhesive in the two top corners. The sheet is undulating and the left, right and upper edges are deckled. There is a paper stamp in the lower left and a watermark in the lower right. Held under glass in a stained wooden box frame with a white mount; unexamined out of frame. Please telephone the department on 020 7293 5381 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Catalogue Note

'What is an Insider? An Insider is to the body what memory is to consciousness: a kind of residue, something that is left behind.  It is a core rather than a skeleton.  It is a way of allowing things that are internal to the body – attitudes and emotions embedded in posture or hidden by gesture – to become revealed.  They are equally alien and intimate'.
Antony Gormley, quoted in John Hutchison et al., Antony Gormley, Phaidon, London, 2000, p.160

The present work stems from a series of sculptures entitled Insiders which occupied the artist from 1996 - 1999. The works began as an experiment with the reduction of form and the sixteen sculptures in the series were all two thirds reductions of the artist's own body as well as three works based on different women and one based on the artist's first child. As Gormley explained, 'the idea is that the pieces carry in concentrated form the trace of the body and its passage through life...The Insider suggests also that the most intimate is the most strange, that inside each of us is a self that we would maybe rather not recognize, and which constitutes a kind of third man, the Insider as alien witness...' (Gormley, ibid., pp.160-161).