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Lot Essay
Forme svre is a heavily welded iron construction that in its piercing angularity of forms and its bold structure creates a stark and strangely disturbing biomorphic image that has all the power of a symbol or an archetype. Carefully constructed from a progression of small flat sheets of iron, the present work is the embodiment in three dimensions of a form that evidently obsessed the artist between 1936 and 1938.
Abstrait, a drawing of 1937, clearly shows that Gonzlez at one time considered using an inverted version of the claw-like structure of Forme svre as the biomorphic pedestal of an elaborate construction that in its scale and complexity would rival his largest and most important work to date, Femme au miroir.
The distinctive curved form of this sculpture also appears in slightly altered format in a number of preparatory sketches for Femme au miroir itself, most notably in Etude pour femme au miroir where in an upright position it forms the structure of the arm holding the woman's mirror.
In addition to these examples, variations of it also appear in other drawings from 1937 which concentrate purely on the form itself as a unique sculptural entity in its own right. The development of these drawings concentrate on the dynamism of the pointed arc in the sculpture and gradually progress towards the less formidable but more elegant forms of Gonzlez's other 1937 sculpture on this theme, Forme trs fine.
Abstrait, a drawing of 1937, clearly shows that Gonzlez at one time considered using an inverted version of the claw-like structure of Forme svre as the biomorphic pedestal of an elaborate construction that in its scale and complexity would rival his largest and most important work to date, Femme au miroir.
The distinctive curved form of this sculpture also appears in slightly altered format in a number of preparatory sketches for Femme au miroir itself, most notably in Etude pour femme au miroir where in an upright position it forms the structure of the arm holding the woman's mirror.
In addition to these examples, variations of it also appear in other drawings from 1937 which concentrate purely on the form itself as a unique sculptural entity in its own right. The development of these drawings concentrate on the dynamism of the pointed arc in the sculpture and gradually progress towards the less formidable but more elegant forms of Gonzlez's other 1937 sculpture on this theme, Forme trs fine.