Giacomo Manzù

Private Collection, Europe (a gift from the artist)
Thence by descent to the present owner

Lovely veined white marble. There is some dust in the crevices and this work could benefit from a light clean. This work is in overall very good original condition.
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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."

Manzù was brought up in Bergamo, a centre of Catholic devotion, and through his travels in Italy and settling in Ardea, Rome, he was deeply influenced by the church leaders he encountered. Fascinated by the imposing presence of dignitaries in their liturgical vestments and prominent mitres, the artist was not so much interested in a religious or spiritual aspect of the subject matter but in the form. True to nature but reduced to volumetric considerations, the cardinal was to become one of his most iconic and recognisable motives. Manzù transformed the subject into bronze, alabaster and marble, a medium ideally suited to convey the sheer surfaces he aspired towards, and the present work is an excellent example of the artist's continued refinement and reduction of form.

Speaking on his Cardinals, the artist quotes: ‘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’ (quoted in G. Manzù, Esposizione per le celebrazioni del suo settantesimo anno (exhibition catalogue), Accademia delle Arti e del Disegno, Florence, 1979).

Cardinale is a unique work conceived in 1979 and immediately strikes the viewer with its majestic monumentality, in its vertical angularity and rigidity, resembling an architectural structure. All of Manzù's cardinals, some standing upright some seated in a pyramidal shape, are defined by a fundamental sense of simplicity and volume. Versions of this instantly recognisable motif are held in collections all over the world including the Tate London, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in Rome.