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Lot Essay
Beginning with his very first sculptures utilizing the revolutionary plaster casting technique in 1961, George Segal broke with the constrictions of Modernist theory and located his figures in "real" environments. His figures, with their myriad details of flesh and clothing rendered nearly perfect by the casting process, are both like us, and in their ghostliness, not of our world. This otherworldliness contrasts powerfully with the fragments of reality that compose the environments Segal creates, and makes for an intense visual experience, such as Chance Meeting.
Segal's compositions simulate physical reality while striving for a corresponding psychological or philosophical truth. Segal is captivated by human relationships. Works with only one figure often convey a resonant loneliness or isolation. Other compositions include multiple figures that relate to one another based upon the environment or constructed situation. The figures in Chance Meeting participate in a tableaux of everyday drama, faced with the proverbial fork in the road and the choice of which direction to take on their journeys.
Sam Hunter has noted that Segal's "frozen figures appear to take part in some mysterious, compelling performance that can be understood but never shared. Forever outside the action, the viewer becomes the casual, unwitting witness to a moment that might be pivotal to human history or merely yet another lost soul stumbling down an urban alley, going who knows where" (S. Hunter, George Segal, Barcelona, 1989, p. 19).
Segal's compositions simulate physical reality while striving for a corresponding psychological or philosophical truth. Segal is captivated by human relationships. Works with only one figure often convey a resonant loneliness or isolation. Other compositions include multiple figures that relate to one another based upon the environment or constructed situation. The figures in Chance Meeting participate in a tableaux of everyday drama, faced with the proverbial fork in the road and the choice of which direction to take on their journeys.
Sam Hunter has noted that Segal's "frozen figures appear to take part in some mysterious, compelling performance that can be understood but never shared. Forever outside the action, the viewer becomes the casual, unwitting witness to a moment that might be pivotal to human history or merely yet another lost soul stumbling down an urban alley, going who knows where" (S. Hunter, George Segal, Barcelona, 1989, p. 19).