讓·阿爾普

Galerie Denise René, Paris
Galerie Gimpel & Hanover, Zurich
Acquired from the above by the late owner in September 1977

Eduard Trier, Jean Arp Sculptures 1957-1966, Stuttgart, 1968, no. 364, illustrated p. 130
Ionel Jianou, Jean Arp, Paris, 1973, no. 364, listed p. 84
Arie Hartog (ed.) & Kai Fischer, Hans Arp: Sculptures - A Critical Survey, Ostfildern, 2012, no. 364, illustration of a bronze version and the present work listed pp. 218 & 397

Apart from some minor surface dirt and some very slight wear to the lower rim, where the work connects with the base, this work is in very good condition.
"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."

A unique marble carving, Il fait le beau is a beautiful example of Arp's mature œuvre. Its elegant, elongated form is subtly reminiscent of a human figure, while its surface is smoothly finished, giving the work a high level of abstraction. The figurative element is reinforced by Arp’s charming title Il fait le beau – ‘he plays the gentleman’. Guided by chance and intuition, the artist often created organic, irregular shapes evocative of natural forms and parts of human anatomy. Although he developed a highly abstract visual vocabulary, in his sculptures Arp always established a connection between these biomorphic forms and elements of the natural world in such a way as to unveil the mysterious and poetic elements hidden in everyday forms.

‘In 1930 I went back to the activity which the Germans so eloquently call Hauerei (hewing). I engaged in sculpture and modelled in plaster’ (Jean Arp, quoted in Francis M. Naumann, The Mary and William Sisler Collection, New York, 1984, p. 38). From plaster Arp progressed to carving marbles, such as Il fait le beau. His reengagement with the ancient processes of sculpture, in the wake of his involvement with the Surrealists in Paris during the 1920s, allowed him to realise further artistic ideas. After pioneering the use of painted wooden reliefs the solidity of the fully three-dimensional form - firmly cast into immutable reality - released Arp’s radical designs from being purely conceptual. Arp explained his conception of art as ‘a fruit growing out of man, like the fruit out of a plant, like the child out of the mother’ (Jean Arp quoted in Robert Melville, Arp (exhibition catalogue), The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1958, p. 27). Melville explains this enigmatic phrase by saying that ‘the biomorphic forms which he has carved or modelled since 1930 or thereabouts make overt allusions to vegetable and animal life… they provide excellent examples of the notion that the artist is a fruit-bearing organism’ (R. Melville, ibid., p. 28).