2010, Exhibition
Sladmore Gallery, London
1st Jun 2010 - 16th Jul 2010 , Sladmore Gallery, London
This exhibition features a selection of works drawn from our stock of important nineteenth and twentieth century sculpture.
A piece of note is ‘Mes Antilopes’ by Rembrandt Bugatti which is his only finished life-size work, measuring over two metres in length. Bugatti convinced the director of the Antwerp Zoo to have the two, live animals shipped to Paris, where they lived with Rembrandt Bugatti in his studio – a project which testifies to the great trust which the institution had for the artist. Bugatti was profoundly attached to the two antelopes and the work depicts the affection between the animals, who had endured a long journey, confined in a crate, and were reportedly unsettled for a while after their arrival in Paris. As is often evident in Bugatti’s work, he depicts the vulnerability of these animals, who contrast sharply with his own sense of loneliness.
Other bronzes of note are Joseph Bernard’s life-size Water Carrier, Herbert Haseltine’s Suffolk Punch Stallion and Ernest Meissonier’s Horseman in the Wind.
Artist Spotlight
Rembrandt Bugatti
Italian, 1884-1916
Sladmore’s Modern department handles artworks from 1880, the birth of impressionism through Modernism and Abstraction to 1950. We hold specialist knowledge of the foundries and casting quality of this period. Spearheaded by Edward Horswell since 1985, this department has helped to co-ordinate major international museum shows, published award winning publications, and advises museums, public and private collections. We are collectors at heart, which makes us passionate about this period of sculpture.
Joseph Bernard
French, 1866 - 1931
It ‘changed the face of modern sculpture.’ Stanislas Fumet on ‘Jeune fille à la cruche’
Bernard is a crucial figure in French modern sculpture, straddling the late romanticism of Rodin and Claudel and a modernism close to Laurens or Lehmbruck. Bernard’s neatly stylized figures are generally caught in movement – walking, dancing, singing – and have a nimble grace and charm that is perhaps less prevalent in the more dramatic work of Emile-Antoine Bourdelle and Auguste Rodin.
Rodin died in 1917, and critics were quick to claim Bernard, Maillol and Bourdelle as his greatest successors, indeed as greater sculptors. For André Salmon, a close friend of Picasso, Bernard was a much more important figure than Rodin.
Herbert Garbe
(German, 1888 - 1945)
Thick planes at juxtaposing angles fit together to form a distinctly unique and bold shape.
Garbe moved in the circles of other famous German artists of the time such as Käthe Kollwitz, Ernst Barlach and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Gabre and Roeder. During the time Garbe was working, avant-garde movements were flourishing in Germany, and he was associated with the expressionist movement. In response to the rapidly changing environment. artists were greatly experimenting with painting, design, sculpture and technique.
Herbert Haseltine
American, 1877 - 1962
Haseltine is one of the most important sculptors of this period. Whilst his work has largely remained within the milieu in which he effortlessly moved; it is equally well featured in many important museum collections.
In 1921 Herbert Haseltine conceived the idea of creating a series of sculpture depicting outstanding animals that had won agricultural prizes at British livestock shows. He commenced the Champion Animal series in his Paris studio, but the project was to take the American sculptor to Britain. For the next decade he was preoccupied, some say obsessed with this quest for perfection – the depiction of a harmonious synthesis of realism and idealism when sculpting these prize breeds.
Haseltine is one of the few examples of an artist who began as a modeller, but later became very much a carver. His early work has a spontaneity achieved only by rapidly modelling a malleable material, and it is on a par with the best exponents of this technique. With his change in working technique, his sculpture took on a more formal grandeur. He would first model the subject in plastilene, from which he would cast a plaster version. The durable yet workable texture of the plaster enabled him to refine the surface to produce the smooth, stylised forms that he sought, in much the same way as a stonemason hews his stone.
Exhibition Catalogue
This annual exhibition catalogue features a selection of works drawn from our current stock of important nineteenth and twentieth century sculpture. Of particular note are the five unique sculptures by Rembrandt Bugatti, each one cast in just a single example. In addition, Mes Antilopes is his only completed life-size work, at over two metres in length. The financial situation over the last eighteen months has undoubtedly had an impact on the art market. Whatever its effect, at the Sladmore we prefer to stick to our long-standing commitment that buying the best always represents good value in the long term.
