JEAN ARP | Torse-fruit

Private Collection, France
Jeffrey H. Loria & Co., New York 
Acquired from the above 

Eduard Trier, Jean Arp. Sculptures 1957-1966, Stuttgart, 1968, no. 211, illustration of another cast pp 110 & 111
Arie Hartog & Kai Fischer, Jean Arp, Sculptures, A Critical Survey, Bonn, 2012, no. 211, illustration of the marble version p. 152

Please contact the Impressionist & Modern Art department directly for a condition report of this lot prepared by Wilson Conservation
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.
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Arp's distinctive style represents the nexus of abstraction and the artist's quest for the definitive representation of the human figure, of which he stated, "I wanted to find another order, another value for man in nature" (Jane Hancock, Arp, Cambridge, 1986, p. 14). While his abstraction-minded contemporaries maintained that the search for universal value and truth necessitated the abandoning of objective realities such as the human form, Arp sought to combine both convictions. The concise and seamless Torse-fruit is a far cry from the efforts of early Modernists such as Auguste Rodin, and while still reading clearly as a torso, the work possesses an entirely new language of form. The shape is complete, recognizable and fluid. Appendages are reduced to protruding bud-like nodes and the soft curves and gliding contractions suffice to suggest the human body. Arp became entranced with the concept of the node. The poet Friederich Holderlin, who Arp revered, stated, "The node has always been the language of the gods" (quoted in Eduard Trier, Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach & François Arp, Jean Arp, Sculpture, His Last Ten Years, Stuttgart, 1968, p. 12). Stefanie Poley writes, "Rather than equating human beings with shells, stones, and plants, Arp was developing means to express their access to holiness. Nature was thereby elevated to cosmos, a new interpretation or at least one Arp had not formulated in this way before" (Stefanie Poley, The Human Figure in the Later Work, Minneapolis, 1987, p. 228). As such, Torse-fruit is representative of the artist's capacity for transcendental mysticism and his appropriation of multiple, sometimes heterogeneous, artistic modes.