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Lot Essay
Grande Maternité is one of Laurens' largest sculptures, a full expression of the artist's fascination with the inherent power of the female figure.
In the early 1930s Laurens' sculpture began to move away from the more cubist forms which he had explored since 1914. Sharp angles and hard edges gave way to softer lines and elegant curves. As Werner Hofmann has asserted:
The theme of the reclining figure had occupied Laurens since the early twenties. He usually preferred them to allow the body to ascend to a compact summit, like a landscape. Later he made the limbs more independent and gave the outline a flowing motion. The earth goddesses were transformed into gay sea creatures (W. Hofmann, op. cit., p. 29).
Three years before his death Laurens said to Yvon Taillandier, "When I begin a sculpture I have only a vague idea of what I want it to be. For example, I have an idea of a woman or something that has to do with the sea. Before my sculpture becomes a representation of anything it is a sculptural fact. More precisely, it is a result of sculptural events, of the products of my imagination, of answers to the demands of the construction. On the whole this is all the work amounts to. The title comes last" (quoted in ibid., p. 34).
In the early 1930s Laurens' sculpture began to move away from the more cubist forms which he had explored since 1914. Sharp angles and hard edges gave way to softer lines and elegant curves. As Werner Hofmann has asserted:
The theme of the reclining figure had occupied Laurens since the early twenties. He usually preferred them to allow the body to ascend to a compact summit, like a landscape. Later he made the limbs more independent and gave the outline a flowing motion. The earth goddesses were transformed into gay sea creatures (W. Hofmann, op. cit., p. 29).
Three years before his death Laurens said to Yvon Taillandier, "When I begin a sculpture I have only a vague idea of what I want it to be. For example, I have an idea of a woman or something that has to do with the sea. Before my sculpture becomes a representation of anything it is a sculptural fact. More precisely, it is a result of sculptural events, of the products of my imagination, of answers to the demands of the construction. On the whole this is all the work amounts to. The title comes last" (quoted in ibid., p. 34).