Seated Figure (Crossed-legged)

Details

Bernard Meadows (1915-2005)
Seated Figure (Crossed-legged)
signed with an initial and numbered 'M 4/6' (on the underside of the figure)
bronze with a dark brown patina
14 in. (35.5 cm.) high
Conceived in 1962.

Provenance

with Gimpel Fils, London, where purchased by the present owner, June 1964.

Literature

A. Bowness, Bernard Meadows: Sculpture and Drawings, Much Hadham, 1995, pp. 73, 142, no. BM87, another cast illustrated.

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

Seated Figure (Cross-legged) is related to Meadows' Armed Figures that he was also working on in the early 1960s. At this stage, he was making a transition in the subject matter of his work from animal to human. For such works Meadows drew on a number of sources including Renaissance sculptors, such as Michelangelo and Giovanni dalle Bande Nere and the ethnographic collections in the British Museum. He also drew inspiration from photographs, including one of the director Luchino Visconti directing his film of The Leopard.

Penelope Curtis comments, 'The figures with crossed legs (such as Seated Figure (Cross-legged) 1962) make a link to Meadows' Pointed Figures. This hunched figure, caught in a moment of concentration and authority, ties into Meadows' sight of a photograph of Visconti directing from his chair' (op. cit., p. 20).

More from 20th Century British Art

View All