Lucas Samaras

The Harry N. Abrams Family Collection, New York
Saatchi Collection, London
Janet Green, London
The Pace Gallery, New York
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Kim Levin, Lucas Samaras, New York, 1975, pl. 126, illustrated

This work is in very good and sound condition overall. The colors of the yarn are bright and fresh. Under very close inspection, a 4-inch loss to the purple uppermost strand of fabric on the left side of the lower section of the box where the base meets the lid. In the interior of the box, there are some extremely faint and unobtrusive scattered marks on the surface of the Plexiglas inset on the inside of the lid that are visible under raking light. The Plexiglas is slightly loose inside the box but stable.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

This notable and elegantly composed collection truly celebrates the breadth of artistic vision in the 20^th Century and affirms the role of sculpture as an essential component in the canon of Western art. With sculpture forming the predominant focus, this collection demonstrates the capacity of media like bronze and welded steel to fuse contrasting artistic refrains into powerfully physical formations, aligning the corporeal with the spiritual, the quotidian with the sublime, and form with space. Likewise, the individual works presented here hark back to the diverse fields of Surrealism, Minimalism, Dadaism, Conceptualism, Abstraction and Figuration amongst others. Yet the eclectic paradox of artistic sentiments is resolved using a common aesthetic language to form a dialogue between established masters and subsequent luminaires. The fact that the collection was largely assembled in the 1970s and early 1980s further attests to the shrewd eye of the collector who acquired works with passion and integrity at a time when sculpture was yet to be held with the same justified prestige as it is today.

One only has to look as far as David Smith’s remarkable Sacrifice to understand the ambitious scope on offer here. Created in 1950, this early work is an incipient piece within the artist’s oeuvre, employing painterly elements and surrealist associations to create wild, lyrical expressions in three-dimensional space. Smith drew as much from his experience as a painter and draftsman as he did from modern materials and industrial techniques, so it is no surprise that when observing the individual totemic structures we are reminded equally of Picasso’s eminent Bulls, Salvador Dali’s melting motifs or spindly figures and Joan Miro’s unrestrained arrangements, as we are of the sculptures of Richard Stankiewicz, Alberto Giacometti, Germaine Richier and Julio Gonzales that form such an integral role in this collection.

In a similar manor, the dispositional mutability of Germaine Richier’s oeuvre chimes with the kinesis of Jean Tinguely’s Spring from 1963 and acts as a metaphor for elements of cause, effect and transformation that pervade this collection. Richier’s L’Homme Forêt from 1945 is exemplary of the artist’s early interest in the plasticity of representation and her willingness to consolidate stasis and motion within a single structure – an investigation that develops through works such as Petit Don Quichotte  and Guerrier (Petit Sculpture) that employ an anamorphic aesthetic to express freedom and the vitality of nature.

 

Tinguely’s automated staging of motion however also resonates with the roughly welded panels of Stankiewicz’s Untitled work from 1964 or even Julio González’s impeccable Le Rêve that appears almost mechanical in its combination of hard lines and cog-like ovals. González here deftly unites brutality and fluidity to form a wholly autonomous work that bursts forth from its base and demands to be acknowledged. Giacometti likewise presents us with a powerfully industrial structure in his tantalizingly early Composition that unabashedly imposes itself within its ambient space, thus acting as a cantilever to his later figurative works that employ empty space as a device that imposes on form. One might also find the materialization of dreams in the slender relaxation of Alexander Archipenko’s Torso in Space or even under a different guise in the voluptuous Nudes of Gaston Lachaise.

This truly remarkable collection offers us a ceaseless array of surprises. It makes apparent links between artistic movements where some might easily have found contradictions and so too does it present us with rare, early works that demonstrate the burgeoning creativity and intellectual rigor of the individual artists. This is an assemblage of significant pieces which defy conventional categorization; instead each work is allowed to form an open dialogue about artistic influence that may more truly reflect the nature of creativity. It is with great honor then that Sotheby’s will be offering works from this distinguished Midwest Collection across Impressionist and Modern Art, Contemporary Art, American Art, Latin American, Swiss Art, Photography and Prints sales in both America and Europe throughout the 2015-16 auction seasons.