讓·阿爾普

瑪格麗特·阿爾普·哈根巴赫，克拉馬爾（傳承自藝術家）
施蒂夫通·漢斯·阿爾普及蘇菲·托伊伯·阿爾普，羅蘭薩克（購自上述藏家）
米切爾-英尼斯及納什畫廊，紐約（2004年或之前購自上述藏家）
購自上述畫廊

默東，藝術與歷史博物館（借展1980-82年）

富山，日本，現代藝術博物館，〈阿爾普百年誕辰展〉，1985-86年，品號25，圖錄載圖

金策爾紹-蓋斯巴赫，德國，渥爾斯美術館，〈漢斯·阿爾普－1912-1965年作品回顧展〉，1994年，品號不詳，圖錄載彩圖

《阿爾普》（展覽圖錄），國家現代藝術博物館，巴黎，1962年，圖版21載另一鑄造版本圖

《漢斯·阿爾普》（展覽圖錄），美術館，巴塞爾，1962年，收錄另一鑄造版本，頁碼不詳

《阿爾普》（展覽圖錄），當代美術館，斯德哥爾摩，1962年，收錄另一鑄造版本，頁碼不詳

《讓·阿爾普》（展覽圖錄），泰特藝術館，倫敦，1962年，收錄另一鑄造版本，頁碼不詳

米榭·瑟福爾，《阿爾普雕塑》，巴黎，1964年，品號15，圖版15載另一鑄造版本圖

《致敬讓·阿爾普》（展覽圖錄），舊海關，斯特拉斯堡，1966-67年，44頁載另一鑄造版本圖

基塞佩·馬爾基奧里，《阿爾普》，米蘭，1964年，品號不詳，66頁載另一鑄造版本圖

愛德華·特里爾，《讓·阿爾普雕塑作品：最後十年》，紐約，1968年，品號167，圖版14載另一鑄造版本圖

《第IV屆當代雕塑國際展》（展覽圖錄），羅丹博物館，巴黎，1971年，載另一鑄造版本圖，頁碼不詳

《讓·阿爾普、庫蒂里耶及艾添·馬丁》（展覽圖錄），地中海宮，尼斯，1971-72年，載另一鑄造版本圖，品號4

伊奧內·伊安努，《讓·阿爾普》，巴黎，1973年，品號167，收錄於75頁，圖版28載另一鑄造版本圖

《從羅丹到克里斯托：二十世紀雕塑發展》（展覽圖錄），現代美術館，滋賀縣，日本，1984年，品號1，載另一鑄造版本圖，頁碼不詳

塞爾日·福什羅，《阿爾普》，紐約，1988年，品號101，82頁載另一鑄造版本圖

《蘇菲·托伊伯－漢斯·阿爾普》（展覽圖錄），藝術館，伯恩；施蒂夫通·漢斯·阿爾普及蘇菲·托伊伯·阿爾普畫廊，羅蘭薩克；海德博物館，伍珀塔爾，1988-89年，品號117，201頁載另一鑄造版本圖

《抽象藝術中的生物形態！漢斯·阿爾普與當今藝術家的對話》（展覽圖錄），羅蘭薩克火車站阿爾普博物館，德國，2011-12年，91頁載另一鑄造版本彩圖

阿里·哈爾托赫及凱·菲舍爾，《漢斯·阿爾普雕塑作品賞析》，奧斯特菲爾德爾恩，2012年，品號167，132及310頁載另一鑄造版本及此鑄造版本圖

Jean Arp's most successful sculptures are characterized by their unblemished surfaces and smooth curvilinear forms. Since his involvement with Dada and Surrealism in the 1920s and 1930s and until the end of his life, the elegant beauty of Arp's sculpture was increasingly analyzed in terms of spirituality. Recognized throughout his career for his ability to transcend formal boundaries and create works of art that could be interpreted differently depending upon a given viewer's needs and expectations, Arp was labelled by one critic as "a well-rounded mystic" for his ability to appeal to a wide audience. At the heart of Arp's success is the organic beauty of his sculptures, which seem to manifest from a vision unencumbered by any formal constraints.

Ptolémée II is a stunning example of Arp’s later sculpture where biomorphic forms and chance development contributed to the constant genesis of the artist’s production. Janet Landley examines Arp’s move into three dimensional sculpture and his grounding in Dada principles: “Although he began to make fully realized three-dimensional sculpture only after 1930, prior to that time Arp had experimented with the relatively flat form of sculptural relief…. His move to freestanding sculpture marked a transferal of ideas to another dimension rather than any break with earlier aesthetic premises formulated during the preceding two decades. Throughout his long career, Arp was committed to the continual exploration of fundamental forms, natural growth, and metamorphosis—an approach that led him to a concept of the reintegration of man and nature. In the spirit of the Dada movement he helped to found in 1915, Arp also believed in and celebrated the irrational rather than the rational and was devoted to the synthesizing of unlike things…. Because all living things continually grow and evolve, Arp worked to create an art of new and constantly changing forms... [his] sculptures are about growth, rebirth, and transformation. Their subjects are those of fertility and regeneration, and their forms derive from a morphological system which maintains that all things in nature, including human beings, grow out of a few basic shapes" (J. Landey, “Between Art and Nature: The Metamorphic Sculpture of Jean Arp” in Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, vol. 61, no. 4, 1984, p. 15).

Three forms bearing the name Ptolémée were created by the artist, the first in 1953, the second (the present work) in 1958 and the third in 1961. Describing this trio of sculptures, Serge Fauchereau opines: “Arp sometimes proceeded by amplifying the forms of a single work. The best example of this is the Ptolemy series, curly figures, hollow and divided (like the mushrooms called ‘clathres’). Ptolemy I… is one meter high, and two interior branches divide its space into three caverns. Ptolemy II… is also one meter high but the body is complicated, with three branches forming five openings. Finally, Ptolemy III… is more than two meters high. It tends toward a symmetry that makes it more majestic; its branches are not as numerous, and they seem to divide the interior space into more harmonious cavities” (S. Fauchereau, Arp, Barcelona, 1988, p. 26). The titles for Arp’s sculptures took on a variety of symbolic forms from plant names, to feelings, to generic human attributes and animal types. He also used names from antiquity both historic figures, such as that of the the present work, and mythological as in the example of Déméter.

Arp frequently compared the practice of artistic production within that of biological creation, both of which are intimately embodied by Ptolémée II. The artist held a particular interest in the natural world, which he aimed to “create” rather than “describe,” as was common in the tradition of naturalism. Furthermore, “Arp’s interest in nature was also directed at what he perceived to be the basic forces and principles underlying nature, the forces of growth and transformation” (M. Andreotti, The Early Sculpture of Jean Arp, Ann Arbor, 1989, p. 259). This proved particularly innovative within the medium of sculpture which had long been dominated by naturalistic representations of the human form.

Other examples of this sculpture are held in the collections of the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Caracas and the Winnipeg Art Gallery in Manitoba.