Carol Bove

David Zwirner, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Colour: The colours in the catalogue are fairly accurate although the overall tonality is slightly lighter in the original. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Extremely close inspection reveals evidence of wear to the extreme outer edges with a number of associated unobtrusive nicks in places. Further extremely close inspection under raking light reveals a hairline scratch to the right edge, approximately 40 cm. from the upper right corner. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

A master of space and material, Carol Bove is famous for her artworks that reveal the poetry of their wide range of domestic, industrial, and natural objects.  Childhood Memory of a Woman speaks to Bove’s sculptural sensibility and its influence on her painterly practice. The development of her painting – particularly the present work – as influenced by her celebrated sculpture is epitomised by her critically well-received installation Les Pléiades shown currently at the 57^th Venice Biennale in the Swiss Pavilion. In dialogue with the Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti, Bove set seven striking, royal-blue sculptures rendered in sheets of Fimo that responded to Giacometti’s upright and existential figures. They are works that have a profound physicality and echo the strong verticality of Giacometti’s famously elongated forms. This translates seamlessly to Childhood Memory of a Woman; with its stretched height, the canvas reminds us of the verticality of Bove’s sculptures in Venice. An intensely sculptural canvas, Bove creates the illusion of three-dimensionality out of a two dimensional surface. This sense of trompe l’oeil, where the webbed metal netting floats delicately outwards in undulating curves, is reminiscent of the drapery over a female form while visually creating a delicate space between the canvas and the netting. Indeed both works, Childhood Memory of a Woman and Les Pléiades, are pronounced in their ability to use highly abstracted forms to recall elements of the female form. Rendered with a lightness that belies much of Bove’s monumental sculpture, the present work is painting seen through the eyes of a sculptor. It also attests to the interrelated power of painting to influence her sculpture. Playing with spatial dimensions as she does so subliminally in Childhood Memory of a Woman, only a year later Bove produced Second Cartesian Sculpture. With its metal grid shapes, it bears all the hallmarks of her earlier netted paintings and suggests the conceptual importance this work has had on the evolution of her artistic practice.