A head

After having compared the choice of subjects and the symbolism in the oeuvres of Joseph Mendes da Costa and John Rädecker, A.M. Hammacher continues on the sculptures of the latter: "The character of Rädecker, his subjective tendency, largely determines the nature of the symbolism in his work. Concretising it in historical figures by Mendes, has with Rädecker been substituted for giving and being himself completely. One can see therefor a typical romantic monotony in his subjects, a repeated return of the same principal subjects, time and again surviving themselves. An urge to 'speak', to live life to the full is clear in his works. When this urge is very strong, it can have drastic consequences. As a result, portrait commissions will never pursue or overwhelm him as they do with so many other artists. The most important for Rädecker is giving form to a completely personal world of faces and figures. Faces more often than figures. Rädecker has reshaped the face much stronger than any of his contemporaries. In his hands it has become a peculiar mix of night and day, of female and male, of dream and senses. Dream power is eminent in many of his Rädecker's heads, never dominant though." Hammacher then continues his discussion by focussing on the alleged bisexual aspect within Rädecker's art, mainly in his heads, like in the present lot: "One will be able to distinguish the moving spirit, the prophetic eye and the creating power of Eros in the faces produced by Radecker. The one time one can see a sex, the male or the female, in an inexplicable curious, dominating way, as a re-creation of the book of Genesis. The other time one can see a vanished male or female, vanished as in dreams, the bisexual face taking shape now, and it lives in paradise. Of course, this is not only the case with Rädecker. Maillol is able to create such combinations, in his own very different and more classical manner. In our country though this role is reserved for Rädecker, the only one who is capable of a similar bisexual sort of sculpting of faces pushed to the extremes. His frantic nature keeps resurfacing in them. Many a time he lost himself in the refined joys of and games with nymphs, young and sweet as flowers in dew-laden grass, or in the silence which surprises the the dreaming and tired faun after its games. Are these faces male or female? They are a mixture. In this I think to see the explanation of the romantic monotony of Rädecker's subjects." (cf.lit. A.M. Hammacher, De beeldhouwer John Rädecker, p. 17-20, Amsterdam/Antwerpen 1940)
A bronze version of the present lot, now in the Rijksmuseum Kröller Müller, Otterlo (inv.no. 1312-00), is usually referred to as 'De koperen kop' (the copper head).