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Lot Essay
Forms on a Bow No. 2 was conceived in Paris in 1948. A drawing of five sculptures, marked for photography, and inscribed, probably later, 'Rue Visconti E Paolozzi 1947', shows two version of it (sold Sotheby's, London, 6 February 1985, lot 505). A plaster version was first shown in the third 'Les Mains ébouies' exhibition at the Galerie Maeght, Paris, in October 1949 (no. 31 or 32), along with an unidentified sculpture (probably Table Sculpture, (Growth)) and two bas-reliefs. An essay, Eduardo Paolozzi, by Frank MacEwan of the British Council, was commissioned for the periodical Derrière le Miroir, no. 22 (4 October 1949) and published by the Galerie Maeght. The plaster version of the sculpture titled Forms on a Bow was then shown at the ICA, London, in Aspects of British Art', 13 December 1950 - 12 January 1951, no. 23, when the Contemporary Art Society commissioned a metal cast, and a unique brass version was made which was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1952 (143 in the British Pavilion). Photographs of both the plaster and metal versions, were taken by Nigel Henderson in Paolozzi's studio, 4 Bunsen Street, Bethnal Green, early in 1951 (Tate Archive). The unique brass version of Forms on a Bow was presented to the Tate by the CAS in 1958. A study for the sculpture is in Tate Britain.
Forms on a Bow No. 2 was numbered to distinguish it from the unique cast in the Tate, from which it differs in the design of the stringed elements and their arrangements on the bow. It was first cast in bronze in 1960 in an edition of three which almost immediately became six. The first, second and third casts of the edition were bought respectively by the British Council, the English collector Gabrielle Keiller and the New York dealer Betty Parsons. Casts were shown widely in exhibitions in Britain, Europe and the United States.
It is generally agreed that Forms on a Bow was inspired by Giacometti, whom Paolozzi knew when he lived in Paris between 1947 and 1949, and in particular by Giacometti's surrealist sculpture of 1930-4. Pen drawings for Forms on a Bow in a notebook Paolozzi kept in 1948 (private collection) strongly suggest that he knew Giacometti's illustration 'Objets muets et mobiles' published in 'Surréalisme au service de la Révolution' in 1931. The concept of the bow may have been based on an Oceanic stringed instrument or a Burmese harp Paolozzi saw in the 'Salon de Musique' of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. The stringed elements were abstracted from nature, and from illustrations in the series of pocket book 'Petits Atlas d'Histoire Naturelle' which Paolozzi picked up in the Paris bouquanistes.
R.S.
Forms on a Bow No. 2 was numbered to distinguish it from the unique cast in the Tate, from which it differs in the design of the stringed elements and their arrangements on the bow. It was first cast in bronze in 1960 in an edition of three which almost immediately became six. The first, second and third casts of the edition were bought respectively by the British Council, the English collector Gabrielle Keiller and the New York dealer Betty Parsons. Casts were shown widely in exhibitions in Britain, Europe and the United States.
It is generally agreed that Forms on a Bow was inspired by Giacometti, whom Paolozzi knew when he lived in Paris between 1947 and 1949, and in particular by Giacometti's surrealist sculpture of 1930-4. Pen drawings for Forms on a Bow in a notebook Paolozzi kept in 1948 (private collection) strongly suggest that he knew Giacometti's illustration 'Objets muets et mobiles' published in 'Surréalisme au service de la Révolution' in 1931. The concept of the bow may have been based on an Oceanic stringed instrument or a Burmese harp Paolozzi saw in the 'Salon de Musique' of the Musée de l'Homme in Paris. The stringed elements were abstracted from nature, and from illustrations in the series of pocket book 'Petits Atlas d'Histoire Naturelle' which Paolozzi picked up in the Paris bouquanistes.
R.S.