Chair

Details

Kenneth Armitage, R.A. (1916-2002)
Chair
signed with initials, dated and numbered 'KA 1983/90 2/4' (on the reverse of the chair leg)
bronze with a gold patina
59½ in. (151 cm.) high

Provenance

The Maeda Company, Japan.
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2005.

Literature

T. Woollcombe (ed.), Kenneth Armitage Life and Work, Much Hadham, 1997, pp. 126-7, 150, no. KA259, another cast illustrated twice.

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. VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 20% on the buyer's premium.

Brought to you by

André Zlattinger

azlattinger@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2074

Lot Essay

'In my bedroom I have had since the end of the Second World War a wooden farmhouse armchair which I like very much, and I made many drawings of it in the 1950s. In 1983 I made some sculptures: one big one, which is not at all like the chair, but before it the three small ones which were like it. The three small ones were made directly in wax; the big one was made in a rather complicated way. It was like a throne with a tall, curved back plate, a seat, forearms, lower legs and head, but no body, all welded together, 152 centimetres high in bronze. By this assembly method and separate modelling of head, arms and legs, it was possible to achieve greater detail than if it had been made in one piece. The cast was sold to the Brisbane Town Hall,Australia in 1989' (K. Armitage quoted in T. Woollcombe (ed.), op. cit., p. 126).

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