Lot Essay
Like many of the famous sculptures created by Richier after the Second World War, L'Homme de la Nuit simultaneously evokes both the menacing brutality of the tormentor and the vunerability of the victim in its single form. Taking as her start the fantastic and nightmarish visions of Surrealism, Richier created her own menagerie of mutant creatures - half animal, half human. Thus, L'Homme de la Nuit has the flamboyant wing-span of a pre-historic bird and the sadly deformed body of a small crippled dwarf.
The figure bends forward, its back arched and wings outstretched as though it is trying to take off. Its obvious incapacity for flight makes it somewhat ridiculous, its humiliation made even more extreme by the contrast between the bravado of its fighting-cock stance and the impotency of its flaccid sex organ. Its club foot and protruding eyes turn further its agressiveness from scary to burlesque.
Like Picasso and Brancusi, Richier found inspiration in the art of both primitive and classical civilisations. L'Homme de la Nuit appears to be inspired by the gold figurines used by the Incas as a device to ward off evil. The resemblance between these small amulets and Richier's version is remarkable, and it is this aspect, combined with its green patina, that endows the sculpture with an ancient magical quality.
The present sculpture is particularly rare in that it was cast during the artist's lifetime and is one of only two examples still in private hands. The other four from the numbered edition are in the collections of the Zurich Kunsthaus, the Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, the Chicago Institute of Contemporary Art and The Art Institute of Chicago.
This L'Homme de la Nuit also sports a fascinating provenance. It was acquired from the artist in 1955 by her friend, the English Surrealist painter, art historian and collector Sir Roland Penrose. The latter was an intimate of Picasso, Braque, Max Ernst and Miró, and had been a champion of Surrealism in Britain since the 1930s. His famous collection included Picasso's Girl with a Mandolin, 1910 (presently in the Museum of Modern Art, New York) and his Woman Weeping, 1949 (now in the Tate Gallery, London), as well as Miró's Maternity (now in the Scottish Museum of Modern Art, Edinburgh). Richier's sculpture was placed threateningly above the doorway to Penrose's Sussex farm-house, as a phantom to frighten away unwelcome interlopers.
The figure bends forward, its back arched and wings outstretched as though it is trying to take off. Its obvious incapacity for flight makes it somewhat ridiculous, its humiliation made even more extreme by the contrast between the bravado of its fighting-cock stance and the impotency of its flaccid sex organ. Its club foot and protruding eyes turn further its agressiveness from scary to burlesque.
Like Picasso and Brancusi, Richier found inspiration in the art of both primitive and classical civilisations. L'Homme de la Nuit appears to be inspired by the gold figurines used by the Incas as a device to ward off evil. The resemblance between these small amulets and Richier's version is remarkable, and it is this aspect, combined with its green patina, that endows the sculpture with an ancient magical quality.
The present sculpture is particularly rare in that it was cast during the artist's lifetime and is one of only two examples still in private hands. The other four from the numbered edition are in the collections of the Zurich Kunsthaus, the Kroller-Muller Museum, Otterlo, the Chicago Institute of Contemporary Art and The Art Institute of Chicago.
This L'Homme de la Nuit also sports a fascinating provenance. It was acquired from the artist in 1955 by her friend, the English Surrealist painter, art historian and collector Sir Roland Penrose. The latter was an intimate of Picasso, Braque, Max Ernst and Miró, and had been a champion of Surrealism in Britain since the 1930s. His famous collection included Picasso's Girl with a Mandolin, 1910 (presently in the Museum of Modern Art, New York) and his Woman Weeping, 1949 (now in the Tate Gallery, London), as well as Miró's Maternity (now in the Scottish Museum of Modern Art, Edinburgh). Richier's sculpture was placed threateningly above the doorway to Penrose's Sussex farm-house, as a phantom to frighten away unwelcome interlopers.