Maquette IV Elektra

Details

Lynn Chadwick, R.A. (1914-2003)
Maquette IV Elektra
signed, numbered and dated 'Chadwick 69 582 4/4' (on the back leg), stamped with the Morris Singer Foundry Mark (on the left leg) and stamped 'CHADWICK 69/582 4/4' (on the underside)
bronze with a dark brown and polished patina
31¾ in. (80 cm.) high

Literature

N. Koster and P. Levine, Lynn Chadwick: The Sculptor and His World, Leiden, 1988, p. 97, another cast illustrated.
D. Farr and E. Chadwick, Lynn Chadwick Sculptor, With a Complete Illustrated Catalogue 1947-2005, Farnham, 2014, p. 267, no. 582, another cast illustrated.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

Lynn Chadwick began the Elektra series in 1969. These figures took on various poses: standing, seated and reclining and it was in this group that he first introduced the combination of highly polished surfaces with a matt patina. Not uncommon in Chadwick's work, the title is ambiguous. Immediately descriptive - Elektra is Greek for 'Shining Ones', however it also refers to the daughter of King Agamemnon and Queen Clytemnestra, immortalised in the Greek tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides.

Following Chadwick's Watchers series, Elektra feels more refined. The polished areas of face and torso accentuate the figure's femininity and the angled poses imbue the works with an attitude of strength and assuredness rather than one of foreboding and menace that one feels in the Watchers.

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