Lot 20 D

The sculptural and graphic oeuvres of the sculptor Henri Laurens, who was born in 1885 and trained as a stone mason, are almost exclusively devoted to depicting the human figure. These decades of works correspond to his artistic development from his initial constructivist tendencies to cubism and on to the organically conceived bodies of the 1950s.
An art market rarity, the terracotta “Femme nue debout” from 1921 presents Laurens’s work at the cutting edge of the synthetic cubism formulated by Pablo Picasso and George Braque. The decisive compositional principle is thus no longer the fragmentation of the female nude but the assembly of the body out of geometrical elements. This figure is conceived to be viewed from the front. It is composed of just a few individual forms: two conical cubes rest on a narrow pedestal, forming the base for three elements: the belly, neck and head. The woman’s two arms and long braid have also undergone a cubist stylisation, but they remain recognisable and can be discerned within the forms. The balancing of concave and convex forms, horizontal and vertical orientations, and rising and falling lines provide the sculpture with a sense of tension. This also includes the incorporation of light, which the cut surfaces reflect in different ways (cf. Henri Laurens, exh. cat. Hanover 1985, p. 76). With its purchase from the Parisian gallery of Louise Leiris, which was responsible for Laurens’s estate, this terracotta possesses a superb provenance.