Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, R.A. (1924-2005)
Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's… Read more Property from a Private American Collection
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, R.A. (1924-2005)

Small figure

Details
Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, R.A. (1924-2005)
Small figure
bronze with a green patina, unique
10 ½ in. (26.5 cm.) high
Conceived circa 1956.
Provenance
Acquired by the present owner’s parents in the late 1950s, and by descent.
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. These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.

Lot Essay

'This is what imposes, in addition to a formal metamorphosis, a material metamorphosis on all my materials. In the finished casting the original objets trouves are no longer present at all, as they are in the Dada and Surrealist compositions of this kind. They survive in my sculptures as ghosts of forms that still haunt the bronze, details of its surface or its actual structure'
(E. Roditi, Dialogues on Art, London, 1960, p. 162).

In 1954 Paolozzi set up a bronze furnace in Dorothy Morland's garden in Hampstead and from 1954-57 cast his own bronzes with the help of Morland's son, Francis. Using the lost-wax method Paolozzi cast a number of small figure pieces reminiscent of his French contemporary, Jean Dubuffet who he had met while living in Paris in the late 1940s. The Pier Art Centre have a similar piece to the present work which was gifted by Paolozzi to Margaret Gardiner.

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