Jean Arp

Pierre Loeb, Paris

Charlotte Lejwa

Sale: Sotheby’s, New York, November 14, 1985, lot 308 

Amy & Thomas Cohen, Larchmont, New York 

Mitchell-Innes & Nash, New York

Acquired from the above in October 2009

Michel Seuphor, Arp, Amsterdam, 1961, no. 19, illustration of the marble version n.p.

Herbert Read, The Art of Jean Arp, London, 1968, no. 114, p. 207; illustration of the marble version p. 100

Eduard Trier, Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach & François Arp, Jean Arp, Sculpture: His Last Ten Years, New York, 1968, no. 180, illustration of another cast p. 6

Jean Arp, Escultruas, Relieves, Obra Sobre Papel, Tapices (exhibition catalogue), Museo Español de Arte Contemporaneo, Madrid, illustration of another cast p. 113

Serge Fauchereau, Arp, New York, 1988, illustration of the plaster p. 83

Arie Hartog & Kai Fischer, Jean Arp, Sculptures, A Critical Survey, Bonn, 2012, no. 180, illustration of another cast pp. 137 & 315

Writing about his life in 1958, Arp began his essay entitled Looking with the following: "To open my eyes, to see, to look, to contemplate the world, to watch clouds and trees, to behold cities and buildings, to look works of art in the eye, to look men in the eye, to see, to look – ever since my childhood this has been my greatest joy" (J. Arp in Arp, New York, 1958, p. 12). In his observation of the physical world around him as well as his influence of and in various artistic movements in the early-to-mid twentieth century, Arp developed a sophisticated vocabulary across media and disciplines.  Created in 1958, during the artist's seventy-first year, Torse gerbe, speaks to Arp's mastery of biomorphic form and his incorporation of human figural elements into his sculpted works in his last decade. In the present work a torso rises up and delicately twists and bends towards its proper left-hand side, creating an exaggerated bending in its back and allowing for the shape of buttocks, hips, shoulder blades and head to emerge from the curving, sinuous bronze. An example of Arp's most accomplished work, Torse gerbe brings natural form – human, animal and plant – into dazzling movement in the world, exemplifying the artist's concept of "looking" into the present day.