Giacomo Manzù

Private Collection (acquired directly from the artist circa 1980)
Private Collection (by descent from the above; sale: Christie's, New York, 10th May 2007, lot 365)
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Apart from a few very minor dents to the base, consistent with age and handling, this work appears to be in overall very good condition.
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With versions held in the collections of institutions all over the world, including the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Tate London and the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna in Rome, Giacomo Manzù’s Cardinali remain the most recognisable figures of his œuvre. Manzù revisited the image of the Catholic cardinal throughout his artistic career, developing the sculpture in marble, bronze and alabaster to total more than three hundred versions. The present work, Cardinale seduto, a unique work conceived and executed in 1965, is an excellent example of Manzu’s continued refinement of the form, which made each individual cardinal distinct, yet retained the fundamental sense of volume and simplicity which makes them so recognisable. 

Manzù was brought up in poverty in Bergamo and left school at the age of thirteen to be apprenticed to a craftsman and contribute to the family income. While he never received any formal tuition in sculpture, he was captivated by classical works, and Artistide Maillol’s figures in particular, which he discovered in books. His talent for carving soon became apparent, and after a brief trip to Paris in 1929, he moved to Milan to work on his first sculptures. However, it was not until several years later that his fascination with the cardinals began, although his upbringing doubtless contributed to his attraction to these grand and majestic forms; Bergamo had long been a centre of Catholic devotion and during Manzù’s childhood, the parish was presided over by Angelo Roncalli, who would later become Pope John XXIII. In a drawing from 1934, Manzù recorded a vision which had struck him on a visit to Rome earlier in the same year, where he had seen Pope Pius XI seated between two of his cardinals. These figures which had so strongly resonated with him remained an inspiration until his death in 1991.

Despite the religious groundings of the subject matter, Manzù insisted that the works had no spiritual and mystical significance, and instead illustrated ‘not the majesty of the church but the majesty of the form’ (quote in J. Rewald, Giacomo Manzu, London, 1967, p. 60) The Cardinali represent a striking and radical simplification of form, yet remain faithful to what John Rewald describes as ‘the framework of fidelity to nature’ (ibid., p. 60). While Manzù reduces the liturgical robes to the simplest of planes - an effect which is particularly successful in the marble versions where the medium lends itself perfectly to the sheer surfaces he aspired towards – he also allows the solidity of the figure which supports them to remain lifelike, and the fluidity of the voluminous folds is interrupted, if only minimally, with the bump where the garment flows over his bent knees. As Rewald continues, ‘in Manzù’s hands, the Cardinals were transformed into compact, forceful volumes, enlivened by extremely tender modelling and generously draped folds… Following the contours of the body, the folds swing sometimes as if sharply etched, sometimes softly rounded, their shadows always regulating the parts exposed to light. This subtle animation of uniform planes and the amazing freedom of conception earned the artist the respect of many sculptors whose own paths had led them toward abstractions’ (ibid., pp. 59-60).

The Cardinali possess an impressive grandeur despite the paring down of their form, and their striking pyramid shape which swoops up from the wide flare at the bottom of the robes to the tip of the mitre creates an almost geometric feel. While from the front, it is this solidity which is most striking, in profile, the seated figures appear almost weightless, floating almost ghost-like up from the base. With only one exception, Manzù never used models for these sculptures; his interest lay not in creating a portrait but in the image as a whole, the figure indivisible from its garments: ‘they struck me for their rigid masses, their stillness, however vibrant in their compressed spirituality. I saw them as various statues, a series of aligned cubes, and the impulse to create my own version of that ineffable reality, was irresistible’ (the artist, quoted in G. Manzù, Esposizione per le celebrazioni del suo settantesimo anno (exhibition catalogue), Accademia della Arti del Designo, Florence, 1979).